We Are Raw
by Aynessa
Summary: Leo discovers that his unborn child is in danger of being erased by the ones he trusted the most, and the horrified Charmed Ones write a spell to make certain Piper's secondborn survives...only to be dragged into a terrifying future they could have never imagined. (Chris revelation story, AU)
1. Tipping the Balance

**Author's Notes:** This story is set about 3 weeks after Piper and Leo conceive Chris. Phoebe did not have her vision quest, and thus her premonition powers are still being unreliable and sporadic.

Piper is showing the barest signs of pregnancy- namely, some nausea that comes and goes randomly, and a minor hormonal shift that has her rather on edge. She hasn't figured out that she's pregnant yet, but the Elders have, and are concealing this from Leo in fear that he will abandon his calling...among other reasons.

* * *

**Chapter One:**

**Tipping the Balance**

xXxXx

"_The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."_

_- H. P. Lovecraft_

xXxXx

* * *

"Have you heard?"

"About the second one? Yes. Many are worried that this will tip the balance too far."

"And rightly so! This could change everything in unforeseeable ways."

"But what can be done? The last time the Elders tried to interfere, the Cleaners were completely ineffective. Their tenacity is just too strong."

Leo slowed his steps through the misty halls of the heavens, his eyebrows furrowing in puzzlement at the clicking conversation floating over to him. Many of the whitelighters and Elders congregating in recent weeks had been having hushed, worried conversations that immediately fizzled out as soon as he drew near. Though he had tried to hold on to the serenity and peace that was demanded of him as an Elder, still he could not help the seeds of suspicion blossoming in his heart. And at these words, he suddenly knew those suspicions had all been justified.

He only knew of one event where the Cleaners had ever failed...and that was when they tried to erase the memory of his son from the family - _his_ family.

Stealthily, praying that no one would notice his odd, fugitive motions, Leo slowly changed direction and moved closer to the group of three whitelighters whispering in a small corner off the edge of the hall. The power of invisibility, granted to him upon his ascension to the Council of Elders, would not serve him well here in the heavens where their angelic senses were impossibly heightened and honed. Frowning in concentration, Leo instead called upon the skills trained into him by the Valkyries. Lightening his footsteps and calming his breath, he quietly made his way forward and concealed himself in the shadowed alcove between two connected pillars. Bowing his head and closing his eyes, he focused on relaxing his facial muscles into the perfect picture of serenity - any passing Elder or whitelighter would assume that he was meditating or communicating with others, and would thus not disturb him. Secure in the knowledge that he was free to listen in on the conversation without anyone noticing his eavesdropping, he refocused on the hushed whispers...just in time to hear a sentence that froze his heart more effectively than Piper's fingers ever had.

"-doesn't matter anyway. What matters is that the eldest Halliwell is having yet another forbidden child. Something _must_ be done!"

Choking on the knot forming within his throat, Leo tried desperately to hold on to the aura of peace he was attempting to project, but the clamoring mix of rage, despair, jealousy, and horror was overwhelming. He grasped his hands together behind his back, choosing not to notice how they trembled with his building anger and sorrow.

He had known Piper would eventually find someone else to love her - who _couldn't_ love her, after all? - but he never realized it would be this fast, nor that she would have another child with a man who would most likely have no idea how lucky he was.

But before his reflections could progress further or focus on the strange declaration of an apparently 'forbidden' child, one of the gossiping whitelighters spoke again.

"What can we even do? There have been whitelighter-witch unions before, but _never_ has there even been a union between an Elder and a witch. This is a complete unknown! Even the Elders don't know what to do."

An _Elder_? But that meant-

Exhaling in a surprised whoosh of air, Leo reached up and covered his mouth to hold in the shout of joy he wanted to release.

Piper was pregnant.

With _his_ child.

"I overheard their most recent meeting. Many of the Elders fear that this child will be another Twice-Blessed."

"But there is only the one prophecy!"

"Even so, the situation points toward the possibility of this one being even _more_ powerful than their firstborn. That one whitelighter, Chris Perry - he came back to stop a great evil, but never revealed to the Council what that was. What if _this_ is the evil he came back to prevent?"

A chill coursed through the unseen Elder's veins at this suggestion.

That couldn't be possible. The evil that Chris was trying to prevent...though he refused to believe his beautiful baby boy could _ever_ turn into that evil entity from the future, hadn't Chris said that it was Wyatt who turned? Leo had been too horrified by the prospect to even consider reporting it to the Council - they had already tried to take away his son once before, after all, and there was no telling what they would do if they discovered they'd been right to fear his existence all along. But if Chris was telling the truth, then his second child couldn't possibly...

_But he has lied before_, whispered his mind.

"There's talk of deleting the pregnancy before the Halliwells notice."

_What!?_

"But they tried to erase the first child before and nearly caused the Charmed Ones to go back on everything they ever stood for. Think of what would happen if they tried and the Halliwells found out _this_ time."

"Regardless, it is not our decision. And we should not discuss this openly anyway. They are trying to keep this secret from...certain individuals...until a decision has been made."

His hands slowly clenched into fists.

_I won't let them take my children away from me._

With this thought firmly in his mind, Leo orbed.

xXxXx

All things considered, Chris was having a pretty good day.

The sisters were tolerating him again - despite his evasiveness when they demanded why he faded away during that whole genie mess - and he'd managed to be conceived without having to resort to a love potion or a spell, something that most assuredly would have gone wrong if he had attempted it. He'd finally managed a breakthrough on his latest trip to the Underworld, discovering hints and whispered rumors of an unnamed power recruiting demons for a secret mission involving the Charmed Ones and possibly Wyatt. He'd even managed to get more than three hours' sleep and had treated himself to coffee and a muffin this morning, all three of which were luxuries that had been exceedingly rare in his future.

So, all in all, he was in a rather good mood.

And then Leo orbed in.

The man looked _utterly_ ridiculous in those flowing golden robes - honestly, all the Elders were completely nuts if they thought wearing shiny robes somehow made them look more peaceful or benevolent. It made them look like strutting peacocks.

Attempting to hide his amusement behind a sarcastic smirk, Chris greeted him rather unenthusiastically. "Something I can do for you, Leo?"

The Elder's face darkened like a thundercloud. "Why didn't you tell me?"

There were many ways he could respond to such a loaded question. After all, it wasn't like there was just _one_ thing he was keeping from the man, and how could he possibly guess which secret Leo was talking about this time? So with a small sigh and a rather large amount of exasperation, Chris rolled his eyes in response. "Tell you what, Leo?"

Leo stalked towards him with an unrestrained fury on his face that reminded Chris instantly of another time early last year, when the man had been fresh from Valhalla and ready to point swords at the source of his unintended kidnapping. Despite everything he'd seen and been through, Chris couldn't help himself from taking a step back at the sight of his father's rage.

"About my child!" he shouted at the witchlighter. Abruptly, the faint sounds of talking from downstairs broke off.

Chris scowled. "I have _no_ idea what you're talking about. I already told you that I'm here to save Wyatt-"

"Not Wyatt!" Leo yelled, incensed. "My other child!"

Chris froze in horror, his eyes shooting up to meet Leo's enraged gaze. Despite his usual ability to think through any problem, to strategize and plan at a moment's notice, the only thought he could summon at this proclamation was simply: _Oh crap._

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and the three sisters clattered noisily into the room, bodies tense and poised for battle. Piper took in the sight of Leo looming menacingly over Chris, her whitelighter's wild-eyed stare, and the demon-free attic, then slowly lowered her outstretched hands.

"What's going on here?"

"Chris," Leo hissed the word like it was a curse. "Was just about to explain why he never told us about our second child."

"Our _what_?" Piper repeated sharply, her sisters' exclamations of surprise echoing behind her.

Silence fell at these words, with all eyes fixating upon Chris. Who looked mere seconds away from bolting or orbing away in panic, his eyes darting swiftly around the room as though looking for feasible exits.

"Answer me!" Leo demanded.

Chris' jaw tightened and and ground together slightly, as if he were processing exactly what could be said to diffuse the situation. Then his mouth slowly opened, and he started to say: "Future-"

"_Don't_ finish that sentence," Piper warned menacingly. Chris' mouth shut immediately with an audible click of teeth. "Now, _someone_ better explain to me what is going on."

Leo sent one last spiteful look toward the younger man, before turning towards the sisters with a serious expression. "I overheard a conversation Up There that I apparently wasn't meant to hear."

He paused, frowning as his eyes darted down to Piper's stomach and then back up to her face. "The Elders discovered that you're, well...you're pregnant."

All three of the sisters' eyes widened at this statement, Piper's eyebrows shooting up on her forehead in surprise. "But that's impossible, we-"

She broke off, blinked, and then flushed slightly. "Oh."

Leo, too, suddenly seemed to realize the implications of his statement and blushed, his eyes darting off to focus on one of the many uncoordinated furnishings cluttering the attic. "Y-Yeah."

Phoebe squealed, ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room. "We're going to have another baby in the house?"

"Oh great," groaned Paige. "More diaper duty."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Piper noticed that Chris looked wholly uncomfortable with this entire conversation - and yet, somehow, oddly relieved. He opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, swallowed, and then grimaced. "Right, um, I'll just go-"

"Stop right there, mister," Piper threatened, pointing a finger at him threateningly. "Why didn't you tell us about this before?"

His mouth twisted in discomfited embarrassment. "Because telling you could have caused h- _the child _to be conceived too early or too late, therefore completely changing the timeline in ways I don't even want to think about. Would you have really wanted me to mess with that?"

There was a short pause while the sisters and Leo considered this option.

"He has a point," Paige commented thoughtfully. Piper huffed beside her, unwilling to admit that she agreed.

"So is it a girl or a boy?" Phoebe inquired excitedly, her wide grin threatening to take over her entire face.

"I can't tell you that," he said in exasperation.

"_Chris_," she whined.

"That's not important," Leo suddenly interrupted, with a strange urgency to his voice. Everyone in the room turned to regard him with varying levels of surprise and confusion. "The Elders are worried. There's talk of deleting your pregnancy before you could find out naturally."

Piper's face changed from surprise to absolute fury in seconds. "Over my dead body."

Chris flinched violently, and closed his eyes to conceal the pain her words sparked within him. Thankfully, everyone's focus was still on Leo and his slip went unnoticed.

"How could they?" Paige demanded, outraged. "The last time they tried to meddle, I'm pretty sure we warned them never to try something like that again."

"I know," Leo replied, his face pinched with worry. "But apparently they're worried that our child will be more powerful than Wyatt because I'm an Elder now, and that it might tip the balance of good and evil too much. Thankfully they haven't decided to try anything yet, but..."

He trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence.

"Hey! Future boy." Piper stepped towards her whitelighter, glaring at him until he slowly turned to face her with a carefully blank face. "Let's solve this right now. Tell me about my child."

His voice was soft, regretful. "You know I can't do that, Piper."

"Well you better change your mind. _Now_."

"I cannot tell you," Chris replied slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully as if speaking to a particularly dense child. "You _know_ I can't tell you about the future."

"I don't care!" she snapped. "My child is in danger of being erased, and I want to know what happens to my baby!"

The whitelighter from the future pressed his lips together in a thin line. He seemed to struggle for a moment internally, and then sighed. "They're alive, okay? Satisfied?"

Piper breathed a heavy sigh of relief, raising up her hands to gently cover her stomach as if she could already feel the life growing within her. "Thank God."

"Well _I'm_ not satisfied," Leo retorted with a dark scowl. "The Elders are terrified because there's never been a union between an Elder and a powerful witch before, and no one will tell me anything about it. I had to eavesdrop in order to find out everything I did. What decision do they come to in your time, Chris?"

Chris hesitated, his green eyes darkening in visible worry. "I...don't know."

Leo's scowl deepened. "You're lying."

"No!" the whitelighter exclaimed, surprisingly appearing to be just as concerned as them over this new development. "I really don't know! This wasn't supposed to happen."

He flinched slightly as the words left his mouth, clearly regretting his choice of words.

"What do you mean?" the Elder said suspiciously.

Chris hesitated. "Originally, you became an Elder..._after_ your second child was born."

The tension in the room skyrocketed.

"So this is your fault," Leo hissed maliciously. Alarm sparked within the whitelighter's jade orbs, but he kept his face perfectly clear of his building anxiety.

"It doesn't matter. Your child lives and is fine in the future, regardless of what was changed."

"Doesn't matter?" Piper repeated in outrage.

"Weren't you just telling us you didn't want to mess with their, er, conception?" Paige pointed out, her expression torn between amusement and disgust.

Chris huffed impatiently. "I didn't!"

"But you did," Piper interrupted, her eyes glittering with anger. "You messed with my family, _again_."

"Piper-" he began heatedly.

"No, Chris. I'm tired of you messing with our lives. Either tell me what happens to my child, or get out."

They stared at each other across the attic, silence stretching between them like an impassable ravine.

"I can't," he whispered finally.

"Can't?" Leo repeated calmly, his eyes hard as flint. "Or won't?"

The time-traveler didn't seem to know how to answer, continuing to stare at Piper's aggressive expression with regret reflected in his eyes.

"Then let's write a spell," Phoebe suddenly suggested firmly.

Paige nodded beside her, then blinked. "...wait, what?"

"We write a spell to see what happens, so we can know what decision the Elders make in the future."

Chris flung an arm out wildly. "No! Absolutely not. There is far too much risk of personal gain that could cause it to backfire."

"This isn't up to you," Piper growled, choosing to ignore the scowl he directed at her. "And I think that's a brilliant idea, Phoebe."

"I dunno..." Paige responded doubtfully.

"I hate to say it, but Chris is right. This could backfire in so many ways," Leo warned, but he seemed unsure whether he really wanted to be fighting their decision in the first place.

Piper threw her hands up in the air in a show of complete frustration. "What else can we do, Leo? Just sit back and wait for them to decide whether to _kill_ our baby? No. I'm going to find out what happens to my child, and I will do it with or without your help."

He bristled in response. "Of course I'm going to help! I just...think this could go horribly wrong."

"I don't care," she snapped.

"No, you can't do this!" Chris protested. "There are too many things about the future that you shouldn't-"

"So help me Chris, if you don't stop that sentence right now, I _will_ blow you up!"

"Fine!" he snapped, throwing his arms up in an eerily similar gesture. "But don't blame me when it all goes wrong."

"Fine!" she sniped right back at him, whirling around to storm out of the attic. "I'm going to call Dad to see if he'll take care of Wyatt. Phoebe, start writing!"

Phoebe immediately ran to their unofficial spell-writing table, throwing herself down gleefully in the chair and starting to work. Paige sighed, announced that she needed more coffee, and followed her older sister out of the attic.

"This is going to end badly," Chris declared to himself.


	2. Portals and Flames

**Author's Notes:** This chapter is dedicated to _nicsav_, who pointed out a few flaws in the initial draft of Chapter One.

Amusingly, I spent several hours agonizing over the spell wording. No rhyming skills here, nope!

Also, a major THANK YOU for the immense outpouring of love for this story. You're really blowing me away, folks! This thing is only just getting started, ahaha.

Finally...Merry Christmas, everyone! I decided to give you all an extra-long chapter as a present. Let me know what you think, please! (I adore long reviews.)

* * *

**Chapter Two:**

**Portals and Flames**

xXxXx

_"This is the way the world ends:_

_Not with a bang, but a whimper."_

_- T. S. Eliot_

xXxXx

* * *

"Alright, are we ready?"

Piper hovered over Phoebe's shoulder, staring down at the pages of writing and scribble that her younger sister was currently working on. They looked up at Paige's question as she stepped into the attic.

"Leo is taking Wyatt to Dad's," Piper answered. "He should be back short-"

Jingling orbs appeared at the end of her sentence, lighting up the attic briefly and coalescing into the form of Leo - who had since removed his Elder robes and changed back into his usual button-down shirt and blue jeans.

"Victor says he can take care of Wyatt for a few hours," Leo announced as he reformed. "I told him we should only need 20 or 30 minutes at the most, but he insisted on spending time with him."

"That's fine," Piper replied, smiling. "We'll just go pick him up before dinner."

"Assuming something doesn't go horribly wrong because of personal gain," Chris interjected snidely, flipping the page he'd been looking at in the Book of Shadows with more force than was quite necessary. Her smile morphed into an irritable frown.

"You're still here?" she asked waspishly.

The witchlighter crossed his arms defensively and scowled in response. "Someone has to be here to fix this when it backfires on you."

Just as Piper opened her mouth to snipe back at him, Phoebe cried: "Okay, I think I've got it!"

Thoroughly distracted, Piper hurried over to the table Phoebe was sitting at, joining Paige in reading over the finished spell. Chris left his place at the Book's podium and moved towards them, only to be barred by a hand on his chest pushing him back.

"Stay out of this," Leo growled.

A muted mix of anger and dislike flared in his eyes. "Seeing as I have more experience with time travel than any of you, I should look over-"

"No, Chris. You have no right to get involved in any of this."

Leo stalked away without waiting for a response, joining the sisters at the table. Chris' expression darkened, and he scowled at Leo's back.

"I have more right than you'll ever know," he snarled quietly. After allowing himself a few moments to glare at the man in hatred, he took a deep breath and then sighed, forcibly calming himself down.

Chris stood where he was for a few beats of silence, just watching the sisters as they read through the spell and suggested minute changes to the wording. From the first moment Phoebe had voiced her suggestion, a growing sense of impending disaster had festered within him, crawling under his skin like a black cloud. No matter what the sisters thought, there was no way this could go exactly how they wanted - there was too much personal gain involved to allow them to risk this. And yet, none of them would give him even a fraction of their attention to listen to his warnings. Part of him was desperately afraid that the Elders would decide to delete him after all, but he had come back to the past with full knowledge of the possibility that he might be writing off his own existence. One could not mess about with the timeline for months on end and not expect imminent backlash. Nothing magical ever appreciated being tampered with, and he had been creating ripples in time from his changes for over a year now.

He just hoped that he would be able to find who or what turned Wyatt, before time itself decided to erase him for its own protection.

Chris' musings were interrupted as he realized the sisters were leaving the table and walking to a bare stretch of wall, with Phoebe in the middle of the trio, clutching her spell in both hands. Leo crowded behind them, hovering next to Piper and looking down at the paper with a distracted frown. Alarm bells went off in Chris' head at the sight.

"Are you sure this will create a way for us to see what happens without actually going to the future?" Leo questioned dubiously.

"Don't worry so much!" Paige chirped, waving one hand flippantly.

"But-"

"We ready?" Piper asked impatiently.

Phoebe nodded. "Ready."

The three women crowded together over the paper, reading out loud in perfect sync.

_"To see what we wish in time and space,_

_Make a viewing portal here in this place._

_So that we may protect whom the Elders scorn,_

_Show us the future of Piper's unborn."_

Nothing happened.

The sisters looked up at the wall they stood in front of in unanimous silence, then looked down at the paper, and back up again.

"Why isn't it wor-"

Phoebe's frustrated exclamation faltered and changed into a cry of "Aha!" as a swirling blue portal blossomed to life in front of them. Chris raised his eyebrows, thoroughly floored that their hasty spell had actually managed to work. Feeling vaguely hopeful that the meager plan might work after all, he carefully moved forward to try and garner a view of the portal without alerting Leo of his closeness.

"But it's not showing any-"

Paige's words broke off into wordless cry of horror as the portal bent in on itself, shuddered, and then exploded over them. All five of them were enveloped by the swirling vortex, coating them thoroughly in blue goop, and then dissolved in midair as the portal shuddered once more and finally disappeared.

xXxXx

"Well, that was unexpected," Paige commented brightly, smiling around at her sisters.

"At least we're not covered in blue slime," Piper sighed wearily, reaching a hand up to flip strands of hair out of her face.

"But this is weird," Phoebe commented in frustration, looking around. "The spell should have done _something,_ but we're still in the attic and we haven't learned any-"

She broke off as her roaming eyes landed upon their whitelighter. "Chris?"

Piper and Paige both turned at the unnerved tone of her voice, focusing their attention on the young man as well. The witchlighter's face had gone stark white in terror, his eyes darting around the attic in visible panic. He focused on the arrangement of the furniture, then roamed over the walls and floor, then at the view of the dark sky outside, and then at the wall they had been staring at - upon which was a faded triquetra symbol etched in chalk. His chest rose and fell rapidly, evidence of his increasingly panicked breathing.

Leo frowned as he noticed the dark clouds through the window. "Wasn't it mid-day when you cast the spell?"

The sisters frowned in unison. Piper's eyes lingered on their silent, horrified whitelighter as she replied, "Yes. It shouldn't be this dark already."

"Well, that's...weird." Paige stared at the costumes lining one side of the attic wall, her face scrunching up in confusion. "Have those always been there?"

Phoebe frowned. "No, but...that one looks vaguely familiar. It almost looks like-"

"We have to get out of here."

They all turned at the guttural, cracked voice emanating from the witchlighter. His eyes focused on them for a moment, so wide they could see the white surrounding his pupils, and then darted away to roam over the attic again as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"We have to go," Chris continued hoarsely. "Now."

"Listen, Chris-" Leo began condescendingly, crossing his arms in irritation.

_"Now!"_

Before they could protest further, the brunette launched himself at the sisters, wrapping his arms around all three of them before they could react, and orbed away.

"Chris!" Leo shouted in outrage, immediately dissolving into orbs to follow after the infuriating whitelighter's trail.

But before he dissolved completely, Leo couldn't help but notice the multiple shimmers that appeared where they had been standing, heralding the arrival of several demons.

xXxXx

"Chris, what-"

"-the hell is wrong with-"

"What's the big i-"

The sisters' outraged and confused exclamations faltered into shocked silence as they stared at the manor they had just been forcibly ejected from.

"Halliwell Memorial...Museum?" Piper read aloud in clear disgust, her eyes trained on the elegant sign planted in their front lawn.

Leo materialized beside them, scowling angrily. "What in the world is going-"

He too broke off, though his eyes were instead focused on the horizon line, where the ruined and smoking remnants of the city stood. His eyes widened. "W...what-"

"Run."

All eyes swiveled to focus on Chris, who suddenly looked cold, angry, frightened, and hardened all at once - as if years of terrible pain had somehow passed in the last few minutes. Some small part of Phoebe's brain absently noted that he looked similar to the way he'd first appeared in the attic months and months ago, as if layers that had been stripped away from his time in the past were suddenly slammed back up, all at once. He didn't look like their irritating, sarcastic, often defensive and belligerent whitelighter anymore.

He looked like a soldier.

"Run," he repeated, eyes blazing. "Or we will all die."

His eyes flickered up at the manor for a split second while they attempted to figure out a response to this sudden ridiculous command, and then he lunged forward to grab Piper's hand, yanking her unceremoniously toward himself.

_"Hey-!"_ Piper spluttered. But she broke off at the sound of something impacting the ground behind her, and whirled her head around to stare at the cement where she'd been standing...upon which was a scorched black mark, smoking and crackling. She had just enough time to look up at the attic window, where a demon's hate-filled face scowled at her, before Chris tugged her hand to get her attention once more.

"RUN," he snarled, his expression almost alien in its ferocity.

This time, he didn't bother to give them a choice. He simply bolted, with his hand still clamped around Piper's and forcing her to stumble after him. Her sisters' and ex-husband's shocked cries echoed behind them, but then their pounding footsteps followed.

"After them!" a guttural voice shouted faintly from the manor they were leaving behind.

"Chris, what-" Piper stammered, dividing her attention between talking and making sure her feet hit the ground properly to keep up with her whitelighter's long strides. "Hold- hold on- what's-"

"Save your breath for running!" Chris snapped, but there was no heat behind his words. She could see his eyes frantically scanning the roads and buildings in front of them, planning where they would go and searching for imminent threats. The cozy houses and manicured lawns of Prescott Street swiftly gave way to dilapidated ruins and cratered roads, blackened grass and shattered buildings.

Never before had she seen their whitelighter looking so terrified; no matter what was happening, he was usually the calmest of all of them, even Leo - unless Wyatt was somehow endangered. But even when the Order had kidnapped her child and turned him evil, even then the fear on his face had only been a fraction of what she now could see. It was infectious, spawning an irrational terror in her heart for something wholly unknown, growing and expanding the further they ran.

A pained cry rang out suddenly behind them, sounding suspiciously like Paige. Piper started to turn her head, but Chris was faster - he twirled around mid-stride and sailed backwards, utilizing the momentum of his feet to rebound off of the cement and change their direction within an instant. She faltered at the sudden change in balance, her feet slipping on the dirty asphalt, but Chris yanked her arm expertly and righted her before she could tip too far to the side. They ran towards the nearby forms of Phoebe and Paige, who was sitting awkwardly on the ground, and Leo, who was bent over her shoes. He ripped the heel off one of the red shoes as they drew near, tossing it on the ground next to its broken twin.

"Heels are not good for running," she complained as they slid to a stop next to them.

"We don't have time for this!" Chris said impatiently, anger and fear warring on his face.

"Hey!" Piper snapped in return, rubbing her aching arm and attempting to snatch her hand away from his (with little success). "Maybe you should explain instead of biting our heads off!"

His eyes scanned the buildings around them, even as he responded tersely: "We're in my future."

They gaped at him, then looked around at the ruins of their city.

"This is only twenty years in the future?" Phoebe whispered, horrified.

"How do we know you aren't making this up?" Leo scowled.

Green eyes flashed in his direction, rage glimmering within their depths. "I don't know, Leo," he spat condescendingly. "Maybe because I told you not to cast that _stupid_ spell in the first-"

Chris flung an arm up wildly, interrupting himself mid-sentence. A metallic crash had the four denizens from the past whirling around to stare at the twitching, sparking remains of a round technological device that he had slammed into a ruined telephone pole.

The witchlighter bit off a curse. "We need to move."

"What was that?" Phoebe asked shakily, staring at the disfigured wires and metal parts.

"Probe to scan for magic," he answered shortly, turning in place and searching around the neighborhood ruins as if trying to figure out where they had ended up.

"Scan?" repeated Leo in surprise. "Magic has been exposed?"

"Well it's kind of hard to hide when the strongest witch in the world destroys every national government in one day," he responded offhandedly, clearly not paying attention to what he was telling them.

"What?!" the sisters yelped, just as Chris said triumphantly: "This way."

The witchlighter jogged east, further into the outskirts of the city and away from the manor, still dragging Piper with him. His hand was clamped around hers like a iron band, immovable and unrelenting no matter how much force she put into trying to free herself. Left without any other options, her sisters and Leo tailed after them, chasing through the city in a mad dash of confusion and fear.

"It was Wyatt...wasn't it?" Piper demanded between breaths, focusing on what she could see of Chris' face. "The one who...destroyed them."

His expression remained unchanged at her question, but the hand clamped around her own flinched at her words. They ran in silence for a few minutes, dodging craters in the streets and leaping over fallen debris, and then Chris darted suddenly into a shadowed alleyway. She skidded to a halt next to him, and then glanced up at his face while attempting to catch her breath. She could just barely make out the edge of his eyes glittering in the darkness, directly focused on her.

"Yes," he murmured softly, regret lacing his voice in the stillness as he finally released her hand. "It was him."

Phoebe, Paige, and Leo all zoomed around the corner, clattering to a stop. Her sisters doubled over, bracing themselves with hands on their knees and panting from their extended run. Piper surveyed what she could see of the ruined city from where they were hiding, and believed in her heart for the first time that Chris was telling the truth about her little boy. Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of all the people who had lost their homes, of the children who had lost fathers and mothers when her son destroyed all of the governments in the world, abolishing their armies and defenses with his powerful inheritance.

"How many?" Piper whispered, focusing her gaze back on their whitelighter.

Her sisters glanced up at her in confusion, still heaving labored breaths. Leo, who had been guarding the entrance to the alley and keeping watch for pursuing demons or probes, turned his head at the sorrow contained within her voice.

Chris somehow seemed to completely understand the thoughts and meaning behind her short question, despite the lack of explanation. "Wyatt's Regime is filled with thousands of demons, warlocks, and darklighters; even some witches. Everyone who refused to join was...eliminated. The number is uncountable."

Piper's eyes fluttered shut, a single tear leaking out of one eyelid and coursing down her cheek. Chris hesitated at the sight, his hardened expression softening slightly. "...I'm sorry."

"What about my other child?" she asked, visibly pushing away her sorrow and focusing on their reason for casting the spell in the first place.

"I can't-"

"We have a few tails," Leo interrupted suddenly.

Chris' head snapped up at the words. "How many?"

"Looks like three...but there may be more hidden nearby."

The witchlighter made a soft noise of frustration and moved to join Leo at the opening of the alley. "We need to lose them."

"Why can't we just go Up There?" Phoebe demanded.

"Or hide in Magic School?" Paige suggested.

"The heavens were ransacked in Wyatt's bid for power. Magic School was one of the first things to go after that," Chris responded distractedly, his eyes focused around the corner.

The sisters looked at each other helplessly, each of them wondering how everything could have gone so wrong in such a short time. Leo eyed Piper sadly, desperately wishing to offer her comfort, but afraid of how it might be received.

"Stay here," Chris ordered in a hushed voice. Their heads whipped up in time to see him edge around the walls of the alley, stealthily moving through the shadows and disappearing from view.

Leo frowned as they lost sight of the young man. "I don't like this."

"What else are we supposed to do?" Paige said quietly, grimacing. "We have no idea what's out there."

Piper drew herself up to full height, some of her usual fiery spirit reappearing in her eyes. "That's never stopped us before."

"That's right." Phoebe nodded. "We're the Charmed Ones - as long as we're together, we'll be okay."

They exchanged grim smiles of determination, then peered out of the alley together. The open road they had come from seemed deserted, no probes or demons in sight. Each of the sisters glanced at each other with raised eyebrows, then turned to Leo.

"How did you know we were being tailed?" Paige whispered.

Leo's eyebrows furrowed. "Because I could see three demons-"

He broke off and dived out of the way as a fireball shot towards him from above. The sisters looked up to see a grinning demon standing on the crumbling remains of a roof above them, holding more fireballs in each hand.

"What do we have here?" the demon sneered. "A few lost-"

The demon exploded brilliantly in a shower of sparks, cutting off the words. Piper smirked up at where he'd been standing, flexing her fingers smugly. "Well, that's one down."

"Ten to go," a guttural voice resounded gleefully from behind her. Piper whirled around with her hands outstretched and ready to explode, but the demon merely grinned at her as she caught sight of the multitude that had surrounded them while their attention was focused above.

"Well now," he continued, rows of serrated teeth gleaming at them as he smiled. "Lord Wyatt will be _very_ interested to know that his family is here to see him."

The sisters and Leo crowded together, forming a circle with their backs to each other and readying themselves for battle. Many of the demons surrounding them cackled at the sight, certain of their own victory. Piper grimaced, mentally reviewing their available weapons - her explosive power, Paige's orbing, and Phoebe's martial arts training. No potions, athames, or crystals.

_Whatever you're planning, Chris, do it fast!,_ she thought frantically.

Strangely, he seemed to hear her plea. Shards of metal and wood flew towards the demons, seemingly from out of nowhere, embedding within flesh and eyes before the demons could react. Many of them howled in agony, clutching at their bleeding eyes or shoulders. Three dissolved into ash, staring down in surprise at the large shards piercing through their chests. Piper seized hold of the opportunity the witchlighter had given them, swiftly exploding two more of the demons before they could recover, focusing on the least wounded ones she could see. Her sisters jumped into the fray as well, lashing out with elbows and kicks at the demons closest to them.

The leader of the pack let out a guttural snarl of rage, and leapt at Piper with claws extended. Leo cried out a wordless warning as he turned towards her, one hand outstretched as if to push her out of the way.

But Chris was faster, diving into the fray from the shadows with a lethal athame clutched in hand. He swiped at the demon, aiming up from underneath the extended claws, slicing its throat open ruthlessly without a shred of hesitation. Seizing hold of the momentum, Chris continued the motion and turned his body sideways as blood sprayed over his clothes, thrusting up his left leg and kicking the bleeding body mid-leap so that it slammed into one of the blinded demons stumbling around, sending them sprawling. As his body whirled around from his lunge, the whitelighter flung out his arm and telekinetically aimed the athame at one of the demons ganging up on Paige. It burst into flames with a gurgling scream.

"Athame!" she ordered, swinging her hand forward. The athame stopped mid-fall as orbs surrounded it, flinging it into the chest of the other demon that had been attacking her. The horned creature convulsed and then burst spectacularly into a rain of ash.

Phoebe dodged another blow from the demon that she'd been fighting, then hurtled toward the athame that had fallen and snatched it up as she straightened from her defensive crouch. She flung the athame wildly at her attacker, but only managed to slice an ear. Enraged, the demon roared wordlessly at her and charged.

Chris caught sight of the charge out of the corner of his eye, thrust out his left hand and then jerked it sideways with a grunt of exertion. The demon that he had blinded earlier flew through the air wildly, flailing and howling in confusion, and then collided with the charging demon, knocking them both to the ground. The witchlighter spread both hands out with palms facing downward, exhaling softly, and then he flipped his hands over and thrust them upwards at a diagonal angle. The metallic shards and wooden debris he'd used as an earlier weapon darted up into the air like birds, and then zoomed towards the two demons still struggling to untangle themselves from their sprawled heap. They seized up as the projectiles connected with their bodies, and then burst into flame and smoke.

The sisters stood still for a moment, their eyes sweeping over the alleyway as if reliving the carnage. They shared a look of surprise and awe, then stared at their blood and dirt-covered whitelighter.

_"Woah,"_ Paige commented softly. "He packs a punch."

"Yes," Leo remarked, his eyes blazing with distrust. "He does."

Chris wasn't listening, however. He walked forward to stare impassively down at the leader of the demons, who was still bleeding and twitching on the ground. The demon grinned maniacally up at him, blood coating his jagged shark teeth. He coughed out a gurgling laugh and then spat blood at the man's feet.

"He...will...find...you..." the demon rasped, coughing and spluttering as he cackled. Chris stared at the creature for a moment, dispassionately watching it laugh at him, and then he held up one hand and tightly clutched it into a fist. The demon tensed, one claw flying up to clutch wildly at his chest, and then went slack as his heart gave out. The body dissolved slowly into ash, leaving only a bloody smear on the ground after its vanquish.

The whitelighter inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. He held the breath for a brief second, and then slowly blew it out, his shoulders slumping slightly as he relaxed.

"Anyone injured?" he inquired softly, turning to look at the four of them with the same blank expression he'd regarded the dying demon with. Phoebe shivered a little at the look on his face, wondering how many deaths the man could have seen to make him so seemingly unaffected by them.

"I'm fine," Paige volunteered quietly. Phoebe and Piper both nodded their agreement.

"Thank you," Piper said after a moment of silence, regarding the witch seriously. "For saving us."

His eyes widened ever so slightly, a clear indicator that she'd surprised him, but then he gave a small smile and nodded. "You're welcome."

Leo crossed his arms, glaring grudgingly at the witchlighter. "So what now?"

"Now," Chris announced, raising an eyebrow. "We go to the only safe place left."

xXxXx

He led them through the ruins of San Francisco, setting a slower pace now that their demonic pursuers were all dead. The four travelers from the past followed after him quietly, looking around at the wreck of their home with despair in their hearts. None of them dared to ask how the city had become such a dilapidated shadow of the vibrant bustling city from their time.

After a half hour of their solemn procession, Chris finally stopped in front of the ruined husk of a parking deck on the eastern side of the city. He cast his eyes around for a moment, and then moved over to a crumbling wall that had clearly seen better days. They followed silently, crowding behind him in a semicircle as he gazed at a strange carving on the wall. It looked vaguely like a roaring fire.

"We are raw," Chris intoned lowly, sounding wholly unlike himself. "The flame inside us will never die."

"What-" the sisters had just enough time to question before the carved symbol on the wall glowed red with sudden heat. The fiery crimson spread outward from the symbol in all directions, fracturing the concrete like a shattering pane of glass before finally fading away altogether with a strange lack of sound or light.

Their ears popped in the sudden magical pressure, and suddenly they were staring at a large open archway designed in the smooth shape of a candle's flame. The crumbling wall had vanished entirely as if it had never been there in the first place. Stunned into silence, the sisters and Leo could only watch mutely as Chris stepped through the archway without an ounce of hesitation, through which they could just barely make out the unadorned walls and floor of a large room.

Chris turned, and his hard eyes stared at the four of them as if daring them not to follow. His tall frame seemed smudged somehow, as if they were peering at him through a dirty mirror or a portal to another world. Piper swallowed, shared an apprehensive glance with her sisters, and then walked forward through the opening to join their mysterious whitelighter. Her sisters followed quickly, with Leo cautiously bringing up the rear.

The archway hummed softly as the last of them passed underway, and they turned as one to watch the opening glaze over like a sheen of fog before finally solidifying into an unbroken wall. Only the fiery symbol marked where they had come from.

"Welcome," declared Chris. "To the Resistance."


	3. The Resistance

**Author's Notes:** I really hate stories with a bunch of OCs, and I'm going to strive _really_ hard not to overpopulate this story with a bunch of them. With that said, I could not write this chapter without an OC that just refused to stay out of the story.

Major shout out to _Ruon Jian_, who was the first reviewer to catch the double meaning behind the "We are raw" statement that Chris uses to access the Resistance main HQ. Really wasn't expecting anyone to catch on that fast! Now I'm curious to see if anyone will spot the other symbolism behind it...

Also, you guys are blowing me away with your enthusiasm. I really don't know what to say! Thank you all so much!

* * *

**Chapter Three:**

**The Resistance**

xXxXx

"_Where there is power, there is resistance."_

_- Michel Foucault_

xXxXx

* * *

_PREVIOUSLY..._

_The archway hummed softly as the last of them passed underway, and they turned as one to watch the opening glaze over like a sheen of fog before finally solidifying into an unbroken wall. Only the fiery symbol marked where they had come from._

_"Welcome," declared Chris. "To the Resistance."_

* * *

"The Resistance?" Phoebe repeated in surprise, thinking back to the ruined city they'd traveled through and its distinct absence of life. "Resistance against _what_?"

The low hum of noise and chatter from the people gathered inside the large room they had stepped into suddenly splintered at her words and dropped into complete silence. All eyes focused upon them intensely.

In the sudden ringing stillness, Chris turned his eyes to them as well and said simply: "Wyatt."

All around the enclosed space, people slowly filtered inside through multiple open doorways, filing in silently one after the other - men, women, children, dwarves and centaurs and leprechauns and all manner of magical folk. The spacious room quickly filled up with a multitude of humanoids, all encircling the newcomers in a half-moon along the walls, an unbroken guard barring entry into their refuge. Every face stared at them solemnly, warily judging whether they were worthy to set foot into their home.

Unnerved by all the eyes suddenly focused upon them and still on edge from the attack during their journey, Piper's hands slowly raised up, her fingers relaxed but ready for action at a moment's notice. Several people along the outskirts of the room tensed in expectation.

"There's no need for that, Piper," Chris murmured softly, reaching up and gently lowering her hands with his own before addressing the room at large. "Codename Falcon, password phrase: 'Bent, but never broken.'"

With this strange announcement, the tension in the room abruptly abated. Several of the gathered members broke out into huge grins or whooped with joy. Shouts erupted and spread like wildfire through the building - calls of "It's Chris!" and "Chris is back!" and "He's alive!" echoed through the halls. Leo looked over at the sisters with raised eyebrows, their faces mirroring his own in response. After over a year of dislike and arguments, it was somewhat startling to see so many people who genuinely liked the time-traveler, when most of the time they found him so aggravating.

"Chris! You son of a witch, what the hell took you so long?" a brazen voice demanded loudly from across the room. A dark-skinned woman with wild hair and a lithe, scarred figure shoved her way through the throng and stalked over to the newcomers. The sisters stared at her in unison, surprise registering on their faces as they recognized the tribal attire of the Valkyries.

A wry grin broke across Chris' face, startling those from the past who were used to scowls and glares. "Erica. Nice to see you too."

"Don't gimme that smirk! You've been gone for an entire year, what the hell were we supposed to think?"

Chris opened his mouth to answer the accusation, but her brown eyes suddenly sharpened and honed in on the four people hovering nervously behind the witch. Her relieved and welcoming expression swiftly darkened like a gathering storm. "Those people better not be who I think they are."

"They are," he sighed. When she directed an incredulous look at him, he crossed his arms defensively. "And don't look at me like that Eri, it wasn't _my_ bright idea."

"Hey!" Phoebe protested indignantly.

"Chris, this is _dangerous_. They can't be here!" Erica declared, ignoring the sisters entirely.

"Where else are they supposed to go?" he snorted derisively, a hint of laughter in his tone. "The streets? The manor? Oh! I know, let's just deliver them straight to the Regime's front door and watch what happens when the timeline catches up. It'll be fun!"

"Of course not!" she said, exasperated. "But they can't be here Chris, and you know it! Send them _back_."

"And how the hell am I supposed to do that?" he snapped, the playful smirk finally morphing into an irritable frown at the continued verbal assault. "Just getting me through the portal the first time was nearly impossible. The second time-"

He broke off abruptly, jaw clenching in restraint as he visibly swallowed the words he'd been about to say. The harsh lines around Erica's eyes softened slightly, the silence stretching between them, and then she thrust a hand onto her hip and frowned uncomfortably in the direction of Chris' shoulder. She seemed thoroughly unconcerned by the dark blood coating his shirt, as if it were a regular sight she was quite used to.

"I heard," she replied shortly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. She was a great asset to the Resistance. Good woman. Hell of a fighter, too."

Chris' jaw twitched minutely, but he gave a sharp nod to indicate his acceptance of the offered sympathy.

Despite the obvious tension building between the two acquaintances, Piper tentatively stepped forward to interject herself into the conversation. "Someone mind filling us in here?"

This attempt at breaking the proverbial ice was met with only a hostile stare from the Valkyrie, her eyebrows raised in condescension.

"Piper," Chris drawled wryly. "Meet Erica, last of the Valkyries and the resident general of the battle troops here at the Resistance. Erica, meet Piper Halliwell, eldest Charmed-"

"I know who the hell she is," the battle-worn woman snapped irritably. Piper scowled in response. "What I want to know is what she's doing here in 2026."

Chris raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if to ward off an impending headache. "The sisters-"

"We cast a spell," Paige interrupted, ignoring the brief eye-roll he aimed in her direction. "To see into the future."

"And it backfired...spectacularly," Chris reminded her, looking entirely too smug at stating this fact. She shot him a scathing smile, which only succeeded in widening his smirk. Paige briefly entertained the thought of smacking that self-satisfied expression right off his face, but then she remembered the way he'd fought tooth and nail to protect them out in the city. Her irritation dissolved quickly.

"So you ended up here how, exactly?" inquired Erica, shifting towards the outsiders to acknowledge them for the first time. Her stance remained aggressive despite the invitation to talk, like a chained attack dog that wasn't quite sure whether to endure your presence or rip your limbs off.

Leo cautiously stepped forward to answer. "The spell was supposed to create a viewing portal to see into the future without interacting with it, but instead it dragged us forward in time. We remained in the manor during the time shift, and Chris...brought us here, once he realized where we'd ended up."

The three sisters looked at him incredulously, then shared a glance that clearly stated their opinion of him glossing over their harrowing flight through the city. Erica's gaze shifted to the bloodstains on Chris' clothing and the disheveled appearances of the sisters, but merely raised an eyebrow at the missing information.

"Brilliant," she said sweetly with a mocking smile, then turned back towards the witchlighter. "So how are we getting them back?"

Chris' shoulders slumped slightly in weariness. "I don't know yet. Give me a few hours to think of something."

"No," Piper snapped, her expression hardening as she remembered their whitelighter's earlier evasion. Regardless of the way he'd fought for them, there were still many things about the witchlighter that she did _not_ approve of - namely, the way he refused to tell them anything that could help them change this monstrous future. "Not until you tell me where the hell my child is."

"Remember that little conversation we had about Wyatt's Regime?" Chris replied brightly, as if speaking to an especially slow child. "Even if you _could_ get past the demons guarding his castle, do you really think he would invite you in for a chat and a cup of tea?"

Pain lanced through her heart at the reminder of the monster her cheerful, innocent baby boy would become. But she bit her bottom lip and forced herself to move past it, to think of her secondborn, who was the reason they created this mess to begin with. "Not Wyatt. I want to know where my other child is."

Chris' face abruptly shut down, clearing of all emotion and becoming a shuttered mask, revealing nothing. Erica, on the other hand, looked as though the words had developed physical manifestations and slapped her right across the face. Despite her apparent desire to interact with the Charmed Ones as little as possible, she made no attempt to hide her reaction to this proclamation and stared directly at the four of them in complete dismay, her mouth hanging open comically. And though they previously hadn't been watching for reactions from the other people gathered within the room, suddenly the sisters couldn't help but notice that every person near enough to hear the question had begun to whisper amongst themselves, exchanging bewildered glances tinged with alarm.

"You...you don't kno-" Erica began to stammer, but cut off her words as Chris gestured sharply with one arm. Her eyebrows climbed high in response, but then she too attempted to clear her face of emotion before turning back towards the eldest Halliwell.

"Don't know what?" Piper ground out through clenched teeth. When Erica didn't respond fast enough for her liking, the irate mother turned on her witchlighter with a hostile expression that demanded answers. Now. "What are you hiding? Where is my child?"

The slightest twitch of a muscle in his jaw was her only response, and her heart sank.

"They can't be...dead?" she whispered, voice hitching in fear as she looked between the two resistance fighters. Even though their whitelighter had denied this earlier, there was always a chance that he'd lied, after all.

"No," Chris responded immediately to ease her panic, then pressed his lips together in a thin line, clearly berating himself for answering at all. Her heart lightened slightly, but then she thought of another possibility, and despaired.

"Oh please..._please_...don't tell me they're just like Wyatt," she whispered, heartsick. Something in Chris' expression softened at her despairing words, but before he could even open his mouth to respond, an outraged voice rang across the room.

"Of course not, he's the founder of the Resistance!"

The soft expression on Chris' face morphed instantly into disbelieving fury. Piper's head whipped around to search for the owner of the voice, but not before he bellowed in response: _"Shut up!"_

"The founder?" Leo echoed behind her, voice heavy with mingled joy, pride, and relief.

"He?" Phoebe repeated, astonishment clouding her soft words.

Paige groaned theatrically. "You have _another_ boy?"

The teenaged man who had spoken out of the throng ignored their words, instead smiling sheepishly in Chris' direction. He looked highly embarrassed to be the sudden center of attention.

"Can I see him?" Piper exclaimed hopefully, joy lighting her features at the thought that her second child (_son!_) would not only be safe, but was _good_ - fighting against the evil that had overtaken her firstborn. It eased her fear that she had been a horrible mother, that somehow - despite all intents to raise her children properly - she might have become the inadvertent cause of Wyatt's spiral into madness, the source of this battered and broken world that was to be their future someday.

"NO," Chris snarled, and then turned to address the entire room before Piper could quite process the depth of her outrage. "And none of you are allowed to tell the Charmed Ones or Leo anything about this future whatsoever. Do I make myself clear?"

"You have no right to do that!" Leo proclaimed, completely incensed.

"Watch me!" the witchlighter snapped in response without even turning to look at him, then repeated himself authoritatively to the throng. _"Do I make myself clear?"_

"Yes, sir!" the gathered fighters immediately replied, unanimous in their support.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" the Elder bellowed in fury.

"The one trying to save your son!" Chris snarled, lips drawing back over his teeth like an enraged dog.

"HEY!" barked Piper, throwing herself bodily between the two men with her hands outstretched. "That's enough!"

The two men scowled simultaneously, glowering at each other over her head. Piper turned towards her ex-husband and shoved a finger in his face.

"You! _Cool it. _And you!" she whirled on Chris, who drew himself up to his full height to avoid the finger suddenly invading his personal space. "Explain yourself. NOW."

"Future consequences," he responded smoothly, unruffled by her threatening tone.

"That is getting _so_ old," Paige complained to Phoebe. Her sister grimaced in response.

Erica, who had so far been simply admiring the heated exchange from a safe distance, stepped forward to re-insert herself in the conversation. "You can't see your son because he is currently on an extended mission."

Both Piper's and Chris' eyes snapped over to the rugged woman, focusing on her with vastly different expressions, but equal amounts of intensity. Her lips quirked in amusement at the similarities between the two witches (because really, how did they _not_ see it?), but she hastily smothered her reaction before continuing. "He won't be coming back for quite some time. And even when he does, he will probably leave again just as quickly."

"But why?" Phoebe questioned in confusion. "If he's the leader, shouldn't he be here to...well, lead?"

"He's not the leader, only the founder," Chris interjected smoothly, his previously agitated features smoothing into their usual composed manner. "He left me, Erica, and the rest of the Council in charge."

"He was never really enthusiastic about leading," Erica replied with obvious relish, a smirk curling one end of her lips as she saw Chris twitch out of the corner of her eye. "Prefers to strategize, for the most part. He's a little too stubborn and hot-headed to be a good leader. He gets it from his family."

Chris scowled at her, his eyes promising payback for the words. Erica grinned fiercely in response.

"I don't understand," Phoebe interrupted suddenly, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. "If Piper's son is alive and, well, _good_...why didn't he come back to warn us about Wyatt?"

"Yeah, why Chris?" agreed Leo darkly.

"Better yet, why not one of us?" Paige demanded. "Not that we're not grateful, but why did it have to be Chris?"

"Because _Chris_," hissed the witchlighter furiously, "Was the only one willing to try to _save_ your son instead of killing him at the first opportunity."

The color instantly drained from each of the time-travelers' faces.

"Wh- what..." Phoebe and Paige spluttered together.

"How _dare_ you," Piper snarled. "How dare you stand there and-"

"Look around you!" Chris exploded, throwing an arm out to encompass the ragtag group of creatures in the room as he shouted. "Haven't you realized yet? You are all _dead_. The Elders are _dead._ The Cleaners are _dead_. Good has _lost._ Demons are running the streets, and we are the only thing that stands between your son and his reign over _everything_! I'm the one who came back because I was the only one that didn't want to see Wyatt murdered for what he's done!"

Overwhelmed by the horrible future they had landed themselves in, overcome by the knowledge that everything was broken because her family had failed (because _she_ had failed), desperately wishing the horrible words and implied accusations would end, Piper lost herself to the emotions churning within her and lashed out at the source of it all.

"Piper, no...!" her sisters cried in horror as she flung her hands forward.

But Chris was somehow ready for her reaction and, faster than they had ever seen him move, threw his hands up in a rough gesture that ripped a chunk from the floor beneath them and levitated it in front of his chest just in time to absorb the molecular explosion Piper had directed at him. The rock burst into glittering dust and slowly fluttered to the floor in the sudden dead silence of the room.

The gathered crowd of resistance fighters surged forward in outrage, many of them lifting hands or weapons in retaliation, but a telekinetically enhanced swipe of Chris' arm flattened them all back against the walls of the room once more. Leo's eyes widened at the sudden display of powerful magic, half-formed suspicions and paranoia erupting within his mind once more.

"C-Chris..." Piper stammered in horror, her eyes wide. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

She trailed off forlornly at the sight of his shuttered, blank expression. Only his flashing jade eyes revealed his fury and, oddly enough, disappointment - as if she had failed some unnamed test or standard that he'd been secretly measuring her against.

Silence stretched between the gathered time-travelers while Erica stood stiffly off to one side, clearly wanting to get involved but not daring to place herself in the line of fire.

"What time is it?" Chris asked suddenly, his voice carefully constructed into a semblance of calm. Erica assumed he was speaking to her, though he had yet to actually look at her since the argument between the time-travelers escalated.

She eyed him warily. "Almost time for the evening broadcast."

"Show them."

Erica blinked, certain she'd heard wrong. "But-"

"Show. Them."

At the hard words forced out between his gritted teeth, Erica sighed and obediently moved towards a narrow doorway. Chris glowered at the four visitors from the past silently for several moments, before stating softly: "If you want your _precious_ answers, follow her."

With those words delivered, Chris abruptly whirled around and stalked off in the opposite direction from where Erica had exited the room. As he approached the quiet bystanders gathered to witness the unfolding drama, he barked impatiently: "Don't you all have things to do?"

Everyone in the room scattered instantly, hastily attempting to escape the witchlighter's incurred wrath.

Piper gazed at her sisters sadly, obvious shame reflected on her face. "I...I didn't really want to hurt him, I just..."

They smiled sadly at her, quickly offering a comforting brush of their hands on her arm.

"We know, sweetie," Phoebe murmured. Piper's gaze traveled back to where their whitelighter had stomped away, staring sorrowfully at the empty doorway.

"Well..." Paige suggested with attempted cheer. "Let's go get those answers, shall we?"

xXxXx

**Ending Notes:** The falcon, in symbology, is a solar emblem of success, victory, and rising above a dark situation. In animal totem mythology, it is a symbol of intellect, cunning, calculation, strategy, fierce determination, single-minded focus/drive for accomplishing one goal, and the fight for freedom. The Peregrine Falcon's Latin name, Falco Peregrinus, means 'foreigner' or 'stranger', because it is a migratory bird that tends to travel great distances.

Ironically, I chose Chris' codename before researching all that. It just seemed right at the time...now I know why!


	4. The Evening Raid

**Author's Notes:** This chapter briefly describes a massacre. If you don't want to read about that, send me a PM and I'll give you a summary of what happens.

No one has guessed the other symbolism behind 'We are raw' yet!

Also, for those wishing for Chris' identity to be revealed, we have quite a ways to go before that moment...

* * *

**Chapter Four:**

**The Evening Raid**

xXxXx

"_We're all see-through, just like glass_

_And we can shatter just as fast."_

_- Thousand Foot Krutch, "Be Somebody"_

xXxXx

* * *

_PREVIOUSLY..._

_Piper gazed at her sisters sadly, obvious shame reflected on her face. "I...I didn't really want to hurt him, I just..."_

_They smiled sadly at her, quickly offering a comforting brush of their hands on her arm._

_"We know, sweetie," Phoebe murmured. Piper's gaze traveled back to where their whitelighter had stomped away, staring sorrowfully at the empty doorway._

"_Well..." Paige suggested with attempted cheer. "Let's go get those answers, shall we?"_

* * *

Minutes later, the four of them desperately wished they had never asked any questions at all.

They stared, horrified and transfixed, at the wide digital screen projected on the wall in front of them, stretching from floor to ceiling in a larger-than-life sized display. None of them were quite sure where the sound was coming from, but all fervently wished that it would turn off and never come back on ever again.

When they had first entered the room, shaken but hopefully cheerful at the prospect of learning more about the future, Erica had offered them only an ugly, condescending smile. Before they could think of something to say, she had stretched out a hand to mess with a strange panel on the wall, activating a giant screen that seemed to made up entirely of light particles. Paige had squealed softly in interest at the future technology, but the razor-edged smile Erica was still directing at them quickly squashed her excitement.

"Enjoy," the woman said brightly, still giving them that cruel smile, before walking to the back of the room and leaning casually against the wall. All amusement wiped from her face as the digital display lit up with the scheduled program, however.

Piper had just enough time to wonder who on earth would still be watching TV in this half-destroyed city, before a black and red-skinned demon appeared on the screen and her hands instinctively rose up to protect her family. Leo's warm hand covered one of her own, and her heart warmed as she took strength from the comforting contact.

"_Good evening, everyone,"_ the demon drawled with obvious amusement. _"Once again it is time for your favorite program, The Evening. Today we have the distinct and utmost pleasure of welcoming our most esteemed guest, Lord Wyatt-"_

The sisters gasped in unison, clutching each other in a vain attempt to gain strength from the physical contact as the camera swerved slightly to the left, revealing an army of demons. And directly in the center of the malformed creatures, a tall man with a muscular figure stood with all the grace and ease of someone who took great pride in the knowledge of their own strength and power. His easy-going expression and warm smile contrasted sharply with the black battle gear he wore, blonde curls cascading gently down to his wide shoulders.

"Wyatt-!" Piper gasped, one hand flying to her mouth in horror at the sight of all the demons crowding her adult son. Her heart beat frantically against her chest as panic spread under her skin. _What are they going to do to_-

But the thought abruptly fractured and shattered as she remembered that her son was in no danger at all. In fact, he appeared quite content in the surrounding army and was smiling widely now that he had seen the camera focused upon him. He raised a hand and beckoned the demonic reporter (and wasn't _that_ a strange and entirely laughable thought?) over to himself, blue eyes revealing his obvious delight. The demon hastily approached, but stopped within an arms' length of the man - clearly unwilling to get close to the Halliwell.

"_Lord Wyatt, good evening."_ The demon bowed respectfully, and fearfully, in the blonde's direction, careful to keep his eyes diverted from the man's in a show of deference. _"Thank you for the opportunity to witness and film this event."_

The satisfied smile widened on Wyatt's face. _"Have you informed our viewers of tonight's...agenda?"_

"_No, of course not. That pleasure is all yours, my king."_

Wyatt chuckled in pleased amusement at this statement, the lines around his eyes crinkling merrily.

The sisters exchanged confused glances with each other, their faces mirroring their bewilderment. Wyatt seemed rather friendly, almost...pleasant. If they overlooked the fact that he was speaking to a demon, a creature of evil, it almost appeared as though the baby boy grew up into a cheerful and easy-going sort of man.

Leo frowned at the large image of his son's face on the screen. "He seems...so..."

"Normal?" Paige supplied, bemused.

"Friendly?" Phoebe hopefully added.

A dark snort resounded behind them from the Valkyrie, but Piper chose to ignore the sound in light of seeing her son alive and seemingly...not _good_, certainly, if he was pleasantly chatting with demons like this on a daily basis, but still not the murdering tyrant that Chris had always seemed to refer to when speaking of this dark future. Leo squeezed her hand in a quiet show of support and strength; she offered a tremulous smile in his direction before turning back as Wyatt began to speak once more.

"_Excellent. In that case, I would like to extend a warm invitation to the Resistance..."_

The pleasant smile on Wyatt's face widened, his eyes darkening with merciless delight while continuing his cheerful monologue. _"...to watch as I introduce myself to their friends in Safehouse 9."_

Behind them, Erica released a strangled sound of alarm, and then bolted from the room. Phoebe turned at the Valkyrie's panicked departure, catching the briefest glimpse of the dark-skinned woman before she disappeared through the open doorway, leaving behind only an echo of the terror she'd felt. Suddenly unsure of their initial assessment about Wyatt's seeming pleasantness, Phoebe glanced over at her family as a curling sense of dread coiled inside her abdomen. Piper and Leo's eyes were completely riveted to the screen, but Paige shared a nervous glance with her sister, apparently feeling the same foreboding sense of impending doom. Neither of them were quite sure what exactly was going on, but neither of them were sure they ever wanted to know.

On the screen, Wyatt smiled for a few moments more, and then casually whirled around to walk towards a dilapidated building that appeared as though it had been abandoned for years. He nonchalantly extended his right hand to the side, flexing it gently, and the form of a beautiful and deadly sharp blade slowly materialized within his palm.

"Excalibur!" Leo whispered softly, the hand clutching Piper's own twitching in surprise.

"What," Paige laughed sardonically. It sounded forced even to her own ears. "Does he intend to bring down that abandoned building with a sword?"

As if in response to her question, Wyatt's left hand slowly raised up, fingers extended. There was a silent pause, then his fingers contracted and tensed as if grabbing a struggling bird, and he _ripped_ the air in front of the building asunder with a forceful downward sweep of his arm, tearing through the shimmering glamor as though it were tissue paper. The magic splintered and frayed in the air, visible cracks spidering outward across the entire view of the building, before finally shattering like glass and revealing the true building that stood before him. A wailing siren blared faintly from within, and the camera swiveled just enough to get a glimpse of Wyatt's sharp, cruel smile and blazing eyes. He raised his left hand once more, shifted his fingers just so, and the barred door of the building imploded in a spray of fractured magic and dust.

"_Go."_

The demon horde that had been anxiously waiting off-screen let out howls and growls of excitement at the word, a grating sound of bloodlust that rose the hair on the backs of the time-travelers' necks as they watched in horrified fascination. All of the demons surged forward, like a pack of starving hounds released after an escaping fox, and they broke through the jagged opening of the building in a wave of horns, knives, and claws. Behind them, Wyatt slowly and deliberately walked forward, a casual march of pride designed to show just how certain he was of his own invulnerability and impending victory.

The first bloodcurdling scream made them flinch. The second wail of animalistic terror caused a shudder to run through their frames. But when the screams were joined by a third, a fourth, a fifth, uncountable numbers of rising wails and screams that broke off into gurgles or unthinkable silence, the four people watching the screen could only tremble in horror. Unable to look away, too shocked to cry, they all stared as one of their very own joined the carnage on the screen and, instead of helping or _doing_ something to stop this madness, moved fluidly throughout the scrambling people within the building and through its underground floors, reaping death wherever he went.

A witch with crackling flames whirling in her hands, choked to death by a telekinetic fist. A fair-haired centaur with a resounding battle roar, impaled on the end of Excalibur halfway through a bounding leap. A round-faced child that wailed in the arms of his blankly staring mother, silenced with a telekinetic swipe of the hand that instantly twisted his small neck into an impossible angle. An old man that still had enough energy within him to take down five demons at once, thrown between floor and ceiling repeatedly until there was more blood than skin visible on his elderly frame. On and on, men and women and children and magical creatures, slaughtered in various gruesome and merciless ways.

And throughout it all, Wyatt's wide smile never wavered.

Piper sank to the floor, moaning softly as she clutched her stomach. Her eyes stared unblinkingly at the massacre happening right before her eyes, powerless to stop or change their fates. Leo, somehow, remained standing - though he looked lost, and small, and terribly broken, curling in on himself as if he could somehow snatch his son right out of the screen and hold him back from ever becoming the monster they now witnessed. Paige and Phoebe had turned away, unable to bear the sight, clutching each other and sobbing openly like wounded children.

On the screen, the tyrant of the future stopped and turned towards them, smirking.

"_This is a message."_ Wyatt spoke softly, intimately, as if confiding a secret to an immensely close friend. _"I know you are here. I _will_ find you, and when I do..."_

His smirk widened into a cruel, sharp-edged grin. _"You will wish you had never betrayed me, Christopher."_

The maniacal face on the wall and the mutilated bodies seen behind his visage abruptly disappeared, along with the blazing light-screen.

"I'm sorry," a voice announced softly behind them. Phoebe and Paige's eyes bounced around the room wildly until they settled upon Chris, standing alone in the doorway, looking as though he had somehow aged ten years since they had last seen him. His green eyes touched upon each of them gently, and then landed on Piper's crumpled form as she sobbed - great, gasping sobs that wracked her entire body. Pain twisted Chris' features momentarily before being visibly shoved away as he brought himself under control once more. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to see...that. It's not normally like..."

The witchlighter trailed off, looking at where Wyatt's face had been on the wall with a forlorn and helplessly lost expression.

Leo stumbled around to face the man he had distrusted and mistreated for so long. His mouth opened, but only managed to produce a broken, cracked sound that splintered and died in the air. A shudder rippled through him, and then he simply buried his head in his hands.

"How?" Piper's heart-wrenching voice rang in the stillness as she gulped for air between her words. "What-...when-?"

Though this made no sense to either of her sisters, somehow Chris understood yet again. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again there was raw grief there as he answered: "It was always there, under the surface...poisoning his mind. No one realized until it was too late."

Somehow, from within the depths of the despair resounding within her, Phoebe managed to produce words. "Where were we? Why...how could we..."

Chris flinched. After a moment, he whispered only: "Future consequences, Phoebe."

"Future-?" Paige exploded, anger twisting the tear tracks on her face into jagged lines. "There are consequences NOW! Didn't you come back to _change_ this- this-"

Finding no words deep enough or terrible enough to explain the enormity of what they had just witnessed, she broke off and lapsed into helpless, infuriated silence.

"Yes," Chris replied, ever so gently. "I went back to stop all of this. And I will."

He inhaled and then exhaled, slowly.

"But I cannot tell you everything you want to know."

As one, the sisters moved their heads to stare at him in utter disbelief.

"Why?" Piper whispered, too emotionally spent to scream it at him.

Chris' face twisted into an ugly smile. "Because telling you could make it even worse."

"What could possibly be worse than this!?" Phoebe shouted, filled with a righteous anger that sizzled under her skin and gave her energy, purpose. They could _stop_ this, they could _change_ this, if only they knew what to change! How could he stand there and _refuse_ to give them the answers to fix everything?!

Instead of yelling or defending himself, Chris simply laughed - long and hard, an unbearably ugly and bitter sound that echoed through the room. Unnerved, confused, horrified, they could only stare at him until he quieted, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"The first time I asked that question," he began softly. "My mother died protecting me, and bled to death in my arms while my father ignored my screaming. The next time I asked, Wyatt took over the world and killed anyone who resisted. The last time I asked, my only remaining family members were tortured to death in front of my eyes."

Haunted jade eyes dropped down to refocus upon the sisters, intense and hard. "I stopped asking."

No one spoke.

He sighed, visibly bringing his emotions under control and standing straighter. When his eyes found each of them once more, none of the turmoil they had glimpsed remained. "If I tell you all the bad things that will happen and when, the simple act of knowing them could change them - make them happen earlier, or make it worse than what originally happened. If I could tell you, I would. But you just _cannot_ know."

Before any of the ones from the past could think of what to say, Erica walked back into the room. Chris turned towards her with the same hard, focused expression - something that they were beginning to recognize as his soldier mode.

"We saved as many as we could," she announced bluntly.

"How many?"

"Roughly one fourth."

Chris sighed softly, the only audible acknowledgement of mourning he would allow himself. "Give me a rough headcount."

"About 1,000. Safehouse 9 was one of the smaller ones, established shortly after you left."

"I see. How many can be housed here?"

"We have 600 open rooms here, maybe 800 if we extend underground more. Safehouses 3, 4, 7, and 8 have more open spots, about 900 to 1,500 each. Safehouse 10's wards were close to being finished, which would have given us another 8,000, but we'll need to rethink what wards we use. Now that he's found 9, he'll be able to recognize the others more easily. The Council wants to know what you suggest."

"I can work on the wards. Go through the refugees and select the ones that have active powers we can use. Station them here and spread the rest out among the open houses. Keep families together at all costs."

The two leaders' conversation continued in this manner, calculated and professional, as though moving pieces on a chessboard. Phoebe and Paige shared a mournful glance, each of them thinking about the implications of what hadn't been said.

If 1,000 was only a fourth of the people at the building they had seen, then Wyatt had murdered at least 3,000 people in cold blood, in less than twenty minutes.

And no one seemed surprised at all.

xXxXx

Eventually, there was an extended pause in the leaders' refuge plans. Erica heaved an exhausted sigh in the sudden silence.

"How many rooms will they need?" the Valkyrie inquired, nodding over at the four emotionally spent time-travelers on the floor. Chris' eyes flickered over to them for the briefest moment.

"Two, maybe three at the most. Try to find rooms near mine."

She nodded. "Done."

The scarred woman turned to exit the room with a click of her boots on the floor. Phoebe and Paige followed her retreating form with their eyes before turning back to Chris, who had raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if praying for patience. He inhaled deeply and then sighed, before slowly turning towards them and approaching their crumpled forms. Bracing himself with one hand, the whitelighter quietly knelt on the stone beneath their feet.

"It's been a long day," he said gently, his eyes revealing the compassion he felt for them despite all of their fighting over the past year. "We can talk about everything tomorrow, but for now I think you should all go to bed. I promise I'll do my best to return all of us to the past as soon as possible."

A hand clutched wildly at the front of his shirt, tightly curling into the stained folds. His green eyes sharpened and focused on Piper's face, which was frozen in a hardened expression despite her blotchy eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

"We will stop this," she said fiercely. The hand clutching the witchlighter's shirt trembled, but her eyes never wavered from his own.

Chris reached up and closed his hand over her fist, meeting her gaze with the same steely resolve.

"Yes. We will."

* * *

**Ending Notes:** I realize this chapter creates more questions than answers, but that is on purpose. All will be answered in time.


	5. The Highest Price

**Author's Notes:** Sorry for the delay everyone. I was really sick for a while and didn't feel like moving or thinking, much less writing lol. On the bright side, this is an extra long chapter!

Thank you again everyone, for the exceedingly generous amount of support you've been giving this story! There was even one noteworthy individual who left an anonymous review demanding that the story be completed NOW...folks, this story will be _at least_ 20 chapters, most likely more. We are nowhere near being finished. I will do my best to update every 1-2 weeks, but please be patient. I have very little time to write and I'm usually scrambling to write these chapters during my lunch breaks at work, haha!

With that said, a huge thank you to my biggest supporters who keep pm'ing me with their thoughts on the story! I really appreciate you all. :) This chapter is dedicated to you, and also to MyWhitelighter, because their awesome Charmed fic inspired me to get my butt in gear and improve my writing.

In response to _meilinglovesshaoran _(since you have pms turned off), the first symbolism behind the "We are raw" statement/title IS that the Resistance Against Wyatt = RAW; this was first guessed by another reviewer back in chapter 2, and is also explained once again in this chapter. I'm asking to see if anyone can pinpoint the other side of that coin. (And therein lies the hint you asked for in regards to the second symbolism!)

* * *

**Chapter Five:**

**The Highest Price**

xXxXx

"_The end is where we begin,_

_Where broken hearts mend_

_and start to beat again."_

_- Thousand Foot Krutch_

xXxXx

* * *

_PREVIOUSLY..._

_A hand clutched wildly at the front of his shirt, tightly curling into the stained folds. His green eyes sharpened and focused on Piper's face, which was frozen in a hardened expression despite her blotchy eyes and tear-stained cheeks._

_"We will stop this," she said fiercely. The hand clutching the witchlighter's shirt trembled, but her eyes never wavered from his own._

_Chris reached up and closed his hand over her fist, meeting her gaze with the same steely resolve._

_"Yes. We will."_

* * *

When Piper slowly became aware of her surroundings the next morning, it took her several long moments of blinking and staring blearily at the ceiling above her before she became truly aware of where, and when, she was.

She gazed at the stone above her, tracing the grooves and natural indents with her eyes as her brain attempted to absorb everything from the previous day. It seemed like a dream, a nightmare...something not quite real. Like the shadowy remembrance of the last dream your brain struggles out of in that moment between just waking and full consciousness. But there were no foggy outlines around the bodies that had fallen one after the other in front of her eyes, no dullness to the remembrance of the sharp scent of blood that had spurted out of the demon leader as Chris' blade raked across its torso, no mistaking the sting in her eyes from the previous day's whirlwind of terror, horror, guilt, and despair. When she closed her burning eyes, the image of her firstborn grinning at her with bloodied and broken bodies littering the ground behind him seared the darkness behind her retinas. Her throat ached from shouting and sobbing. Her legs ached from their frenzied escape through the city. Her hand ached from their whitelighter's bruising hold pulling her to safety.

Most of all, her heart ached.

How could this have happened? None of this would be a reality if she hadn't failed so clearly at raising Wyatt. Somehow, despite all of their intentions, something had happened along the way where she'd failed to protect him, where she'd failed in her duty as a parent to show him what was right and what was so very, very wrong.

_"Demons are running the streets, and we are the only thing that stands between your son and his reign over everything!"_

Piper gritted her teeth, refusing to keep crying like a broken teenager. _I won't fail this time. I will stop this, even if it kills me._

A knock at the door broke through her determined reverie, startling her into sitting up. Beside her, Leo's prone form stirred as his arm was unexpectedly jolted from its position on her torso, sliding down to rest in her lap. She stared at him in surprise, thoroughly flummoxed. The last thing she remembered was a blur of Chris leading them through endless stone halls, the silence broken only by their shuffling footsteps and quiet sniffles. How on earth had she ended up in the same room, let alone bed, as her ex husband?

The knock resounded again, louder this time. "Piper?"

She huffed a soft breath of annoyance at Phoebe's insistent voice coming through the door, and hastily scrambled out from under the thick quilt and heavy arm tangled around her, cringing across the cold stone floor in bare feet. It had been pleasantly warm outside even during their frightened escape, but clearly the springtime temperature did not transfer through the multiple underground floors of the Resistance's headquarters.

Piper cracked open the door gently, dancing from foot to foot as the cold quickly seeped up into her bones. Through the empty space between wood and stone, her disheveled sister paused in the process of knocking again, looking quite comical with her fist raised in the air, hair askew, and clothes from the previous day thoroughly rumpled from being worn for too many hours.

"What?" she demanded crossly, before Phoebe could say anything. Her sister made a face at her grumpy greeting but silently overlooked it, blessedly understanding woman that she was.

"Breakfast is being served right now. Chris came by to let us know that it will be closing down in thirty minutes, so if we want food we need to go soon."

"I also brought everyone some change of clothes," Chris announced from behind the middle sister, his voice clearly revealing exhaustion. Piper blinked in surprise and opened the door wider, peering through the crack and critically raking her eyes over their whitelighter. As soon as his eyes turned to her an odd emotion passed over his features, causing him to somehow look suddenly and inexplicably young, but then he averted his eyes and the emotion was gone as swiftly as it had appeared. He seemed wide awake and alert, but there was a slight paleness to his skin and a hint of purple beneath his eyes, clear indicators of someone who desperately needed rest.

"Have you slept at all?"

Chris blinked in alarm, his eyes widening just a fraction at her sudden unexpected interest in his well-being, though he continued to avoid her searching eyes. "Um. No?"

"Why not?"

"Because there were things I needed to do," he answered vaguely, shoving a small pile of folded clothes at her. "These are for you and Leo. You have five minutes."

He orbed away before she could respond, and she stared after his retreating orbs in outrage. Throwing her hands up in the air, she made a wordlessly infuriated noise deep in her throat. "What is his problem?"

Phoebe stared into the air where he'd been standing and hummed thoughtfully. "I dunno. He seemed sort of sad, almost...guilty, when he looked at you."

"I thought you couldn't feel anything from him?" Piper commented, eyeing her dubiously.

"I can't. I could just see it in his face."

"But..." Piper frowned. "Why would he..."

She trailed off, thinking back to the previous night, when he'd stood alone and broken in the doorway, apologizing for a massacre that he had every right to blame them for instead. She thought of the way his face had twisted with insurmountable grief when she'd asked about Wyatt, as if he mourned for the loss of her son's sanity rather than despising him as so many others did. She thought of the exceedingly gentle way he'd treated them, when they had shattered and were too lost to put themselves back together, and the way he'd vowed to save their world with every fiber of his soul poured into the words even after they'd screamed their rage at him.

Her indignation faded, replaced with a weary sorrow for the way she'd treated the man when he had always fought with everything he had to ensure her family's safety. Thinking back on some of his dubiously moral actions, the plots and manipulation that had so infuriated them, she felt suddenly that she could finally understand his driving need, his ruthless pursuit of achieving one goal at the cost of all else. Suddenly it made sense - all of the convoluted lies, twisted schemes, casually persuading arguments; if she had been in his place, enduring all the pain and horror of this terrible future brought on by just one little boy, she might have acted just as ruthlessly in order to save the endless victims of the future. What were four individuals' injured pride, after all, in the face of all this devastation?

She felt like a child.

How many times had she told him to get a life? To back off and let them have some normalcy, some time to themselves? How many times had she threatened him, yelled at him, for messing with their lives? How many demon vanquishes had she brushed off, callously telling him that she had better things to do with her time?

And all the while, he'd had the images of this ruined city in mind, recklessly pursuing a means to save countless millions without having to endure the loss of one child in trade.

She'd been such a fool. They'd all been fools.

Nursing their injured pride, refusing to accept the possibility that they could have let one demon slip through the cracks, they'd blocked off their hearts to his pleas, his desperation. Holding their title up like a banner, they'd shoved it in his face more times than she could remember - what was a single whitelighter to the _Charmed Ones?_ What were his measly hybrid powers in comparison to their Power of Three? And yet he was pushing himself to the limits, constantly, ever reaching towards an answer that could save fifty times the amount of innocents they'd ever rescued, let alone laid eyes on.

She wondered, suddenly, how he could have possibly endured their naïveté and childishness for so long.

"Piper?"

Startled, she jumped slightly and turned toward her sister, who'd been watching her with growing concern.

"Are...are you alright?"

Piper did not quite know how to answer that, honestly. So she said simply: "I'm fine."

Her sister's caring eyes darkened sadly and her mouth parted as if she intended to speak, but she let it go with a small smile and simply headed back to her and Paige's room. Piper sighed to herself wearily and slowly closed the door, bracing her hands against the rough surface in hopes of somehow claiming its quiet stability for her own frazzled emotions.

"Piper?"

She turned in surprise at Leo's gentle voice. Their conversation had clearly woken him, but he didn't seem agitated or sleepy; on the contrary, he looked rather like she felt - despairing, but determined not to let the circumstances break him.

"Hey," she responded softly. She didn't bother to attempt a smile, but moved forward to deposit the clothes in her arms onto the bed they'd shared (despite the extra bed nestled in the corner of the room, she noted absently). "Chris brought us some clothes. He says breakfast is being served right now, so we should hurry."

Leo eyed her silently, in that strange way he had of seeming to look straight through her. She turned away from his searching gaze to hunt down her shoes, but his hand caught her wrist and prevented her from moving farther. His thumb rubbed small, gentle circles over the skin on the inside of her wrist, causing her insides to flutter faintly.

"Are you alright?" he ventured softly, earnestly gazing up at her expression.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" she demanded - with a rather embarrassing crack in her voice that she was _not_ going to acknowledge. "Are _you?_"

"No."

Piper blinked and paused at his unexpectedly blunt response, at a loss for what to say in reply. He smiled at her, but his crooked mouth belied only suffering and guilt rather than any joy or comfort.

"I just..." he floundered for words, glancing around wildly at their unfamiliar room as if searching for answers in the stones and strange furniture around them. "I don't..."

"...understand how it happened?" she finished softly. "How we could have failed him so badly that he would turn into...that?"

His eyes glistened up at her in the dim lighting of the room. "Yeah."

Swallowing the unwanted knot forming in her throat, Piper frowned and blinked fiercely to keep her traitorous eyes from generating more tears. "It doesn't matter."

Leo delivered a rather impressive look of disbelief at her, but she nodded decisively at him, once, and then twice, as if reassuring herself of her own words.

"It doesn't matter," she repeated firmly. "Because we are not going to let it happen."

He stared at her solemnly, eyes burning through the space between them and charging the air with all the unspoken things he didn't know how to say; speaking them anyway with the steady resolve in his gaze, reflecting her fierce determination to accomplish what they had failed to do once before.

"Okay," he said, breaking the silence between them with his soft voice.

She nodded again. "Okay."

They shared a quiet glance filled with warmth, and Piper briefly wondered how she'd ever thought that she could manage on her own without the other half of her soul.

"You know..." she began, hesitating. Her fingers curled desperately into the bedspread. "If- when...we get back...would you, maybe, consider-"

"Alright you guys, 5 minutes is up!" Phoebe's voice announced loudly at their door as she banged on it, obscenely cheerful.

Piper's voice dissolved into a wordless growl of frustration. She entertained a brief fantasy of opening the door, informing her sister of exactly where she could stick her cheerfulness, and then slamming it delightedly in her face; but she mastered the outlandish impulse and resigned herself to simply changing her clothes. Leo gave her a small rueful smile, and then reached for the clothes pile as well.

They changed in record time, distinctly aware of her sister's presence hovering impatiently outside the room, and then hastened out into the hall before she could get some ludicrous idea like neglecting their privacy and simply barging through the door.

The stone hall outside their door was empty and quiet, stretching out from their rooms on either side in a wide tunnel. Despite the stone ceiling hung low over their heads, it was carved in a gentle oval shape to give dwelling inhabitants the illusion of not being underground at all. Stationed in even intervals all along the wall were old-fashioned torches, like a medieval castle, but rather than fire the metalwork held simple glowing orbs that shone faintly blue, brilliantly illuminating the passageways yet somehow soft enough to be gentle on their eyes. The four time travelers turned to the left, and then to the right, surveying the empty halls with an expectant silence.

"Well...now what?" Piper muttered grumpily. "Does anyone remember which way we came from last night?"

"Of course not," Paige grunted, scowling sleepily at the floor. Her two sisters winced and resolved to locate coffee before actual food.

Leo glanced back at their doors, and then faced to their right, inclining his head slightly. "It feels like most of the people here are gathered in that direction."

"Then we'll go that way," Piper decided. Just as she stepped forward, however, a cheerful tinkling sound resembling bells echoed in the cavern, and a swirling mass of blue orbs coalesced into the form of Chris directly in front of them. As he reformed, he blinked owlishly at them for a few moments in surprise, as if he hadn't expected them to actually obey his five minute order. _Or_, reflected Piper with no small amount of humor, _maybe he's simply surprised to see us looking so rumpled._

"Breakfast?" she prompted when the silence started to stretch.

"Showers?" added Phoebe.

"Coffee," Paige demanded, glowering at the whitelighter with none of her usual bubbly cheer.

The edges of Chris' mouth trembled in obvious amusement, though he ruthlessly suppressed the laugh that was clearly building in his throat. "I have bad news for you...there is no coffee."

Each sister stared at him, their expressions ranging from sheer disbelief to absolute outrage.

"That's impossible," declared Paige. "There _has_ to be coffee."

Chris affixed her with a mocking smirk. "You really think that with everything going on, we would care about small, silly luxuries?"

She glared at him with an expression that rather clearly stated what she thought of his definition for her favorite beverage, but his scornful look never faltered.

"You're going to have to get used to the way things are here," he informed them unsympathetically, his tone cool and matter-of-fact as if delivering simple, unavoidable facts. "We don't have the luxuries that you're used to. People here don't care about things like coffee or candy or their favorite meals- we're rather more concerned with being able to eat in the first place. You need to get used to not having the things that you've lived with all your lives and expect as a part of your day, and you need to get used to it _fast._ No one here is going to care if you want a break or a chance to have a normal life; most of us are just grateful to be alive at all, and even that is a luxury."

Both Phoebe and Paige suddenly looked wide-awake, and rather appalled at his words. Even Leo shared their sentiment, his eyes wide and slightly mutinous at the sudden condescending sneers directed their way.

Piper, however, continued to gaze calmly at Chris, her eyes steady and unwavering. "Right. So, breakfast?"

She experienced a moment of gleeful triumph at the faintly stunned look on his face, before he wiped his expression clean and nodded at her in a businesslike manner. But just before he turned around to lead them in the direction of the eating hall, Piper could have sworn she spied a fierce glint of approval in his eyes.

xXxXx

After following the witchlighter through various winding tunnels for five minutes, Phoebe finally tired of the slightly awkward silence.

"Sooooo," she began, drawing out the sound. Chris slanted an apprehensive glance in her direction and then cast his eyes back to where they were walking. "I know you can't tell us anything major, but...I was wondering if maybe you could answer some _teensy_ little questions?"

To their surprise, Chris barked out a sharp and deeply amused laugh, rather than dissolving into fury like he had the previous day. His emerald eyes glanced back at Phoebe again, warm and dancing with laughter. "You never change, Phoebe."

She smiled uncertainly, unsure of how to interpret his comment. Chris chuckled to himself, shaking his head fondly. "You can ask me whatever you want. There's no guarantee that I'll answer, but..." he trailed off thoughtfully, his expression introspective for a brief moment. "Seeing as you're already here and getting a first hand glimpse of the future for yourselves, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to explain the small details. But _only_ the small ones."

"Great!" Phoebe enthused in surprise, having expected complete refusal. "Um...um..."

She trailed off helplessly, seemingly unable to decide which of her million questions to ask first.

Seizing hold of the chance, Paige demanded imperiously, "Why is there no coffee?"

"Well, technically there _is_ coffee," Chris replied with obvious amusement. "If you want to march up to the Regime's front doors and demand that the demons give you some, that is."

The redhead frowned in disgust. "That sucks."

"Since when do demons drink coffee?" Piper couldn't resist asking.

"Since they became the dominant species on earth. Many demons found it amusing to make a mockery of the way people had lived before- living in their houses, drinking their coffee, et cetera. That's why there are still television shows, actually. Demons find it the height of amusement to twist what used to be the normal way of living, and it also provides a way for...the Regime to showcase how they do things to the rest of the world, in case any of the warlocks or demon armies get the bright idea to try and usurp their reign."

"You mean...Wyatt's reign, right?" Piper inquired softly.

He flinched, ever so slightly. If she hadn't had her eyes trained on his face avidly searching for a reaction, she would have never noticed.

"...yes."

Piper studied him for a moment as another awkward silence descended over the group, eyeing the hard planes of his face. It occurred to her suddenly that he was trying to protect them, that perhaps he always had been. Maybe the whole "future consequences" thing hadn't been so much about the laws of time-travel, though that was certainly a huge part of his secrecy to be sure, but maybe he'd been so flawlessly tight-lipped simply because he hadn't wanted to hurt them in the first place. When he'd first told them of his true mission, the one hidden behind his initial pretense of rescuing Paige and their Power of Three from the Titans, he had told them only that he wanted to save Wyatt, that something had happened to hurt him. And it was the truth, she mused, though only a small part of it. Perhaps he had kept the real truth about Wyatt from them, not for fear of their reactions or disbelief, but because he knew it would cut them to the core - one of their very own, twisted and tainted until he enjoyed slaughtering thousands. He had even apologized afterwards for hurting them, even after she had flung such cruel words in his face. And he had been horrified when he discovered what they'd seen on that strange light-screen...not because they'd seen something he didn't want them to, but because he had wanted to spare them from the terrible truth. Even now he was trying to keep Wyatt's name from his lips, as if to shield them from the root cause of all this devastation.

"You don't have to protect us, you know."

The words spilled from her mouth before the thought had even fully formed. She blinked in surprise, slightly embarrassed at the slip, but the sudden wide-eyed look Chris sent her way was worth it. He stared at her for a brief moment (as did her sisters and Leo, she noted) in wordless surprise, apparently in complete disbelief that she'd managed to instinctively figure out his inner motives, and then he blinked twice in succession and gave her a slow, sweet smile. It transformed his face and made him look years younger; the slightest twinge of familiarity sparked within her at the sight, though she definitely did not remember ever seeing him look at her like that before.

"I'll take it under consideration," he teased warmly, and then abruptly stopped in front of two enormous double-doors.

"This is the eating hall," he informed them, that strange note of startling warmth still present in his voice. "Meals are between seven and eight, noon and one, and seven and eight again. I'll keep showing you the way until you get used to it...though I'm hoping we won't be here long enough for that to happen."

He pushed open the doors with both hands after delivering this information, revealing a cavernous space large enough to fit at least ten of the building that housed P3, filled with people and magical beings of all sizes, far more than the group they'd seen the previous day, all eating and chatting avidly with each other. Long tables hewn from dark wood stretched across the hall, spaced apart in even rows on either side of the entrance-way they stood in, equally as long benches providing everyone a place to sit as they ate. The same torchlights interspersed throughout the hallways were used again inside the stone cavern, though in greater number to give residents more light to see their food and each other by.

At the sound of the doors opening, a few of the residents sitting nearest to the entryway glanced over in idle curiosity, and then performed rather amusing double-takes. Slowly their actions spread throughout the hall, boisterous conversations petering off into soft murmurings and then complete silence, as everyone's eyes turned towards the newcomers in wonder. The time-travelers tensed uncomfortably in the spotlight, but Chris turned to them as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

"Come on, I'll show you where you can get some breakfast," he announced casually, starting to walk in the direction of what appeared to be a stone bar. They hurried after him, uncomfortably aware of the enormous amount of eyes fixed upon them.

"We don't really have the traditional breakfasts you're used to, since chickens and other animals are a little hard to come by these days. Our meals are mainly made up of things that you can grow in the ground, since that's really all we have access to. There's an underground garden where we grow everything - I can show you that later..."

He continued to ramble casually into the silence at his normal speaking volume, oddly talkative for once. The travelers glanced at each other in momentary confusion, but soon noticed that their audience was gradually losing interest and beginning to eat and converse amongst themselves once more. As the majority of people staring at them dwindled to a small fraction, Chris finally ended his nonchalant monologue with a satisfied smirk.

"Why..." Phoebe began haltingly. "...were they all staring like that?"

"Like what?"

"Well..." she trailed off uncertainly, biting her lip.

"Like they were in awe," Leo interjected, confusion lacing his uneasy tone. "I would have thought that...with Wyatt and everything..."

Chris breathed a soft sigh. "You have to understand...the Charmed Ones are legend. Most of the people here grew up hearing about your legacy; all of your rescues, vanquishes, triumphs. Very few blame you for Wyatt, because he was the only Halliwell to turn out like that."

"So we all...fought against him then?" Paige clarified uncertainly.

Chris slowed his pace as they arrived at the stone counter they'd been heading towards, where a wide-eyed young woman was alternately staring between the witchlighter and his entourage. He turned and raised an eyebrow at Paige. "You know I can't answer that."

She huffed softly to herself in frustration, but Piper frowned at her warningly. If her sisters wanted to keep getting any answers, it would be best not to antagonize the one giving it to them, after all.

Chris turned back to the young woman, whose eyes were darting between them nervously. "Five, please."

She nodded hastily and then darted into a narrow side door behind the counter. Chris sighed as she departed and rested his weight against the counter, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose in weariness.

"So why were you up all night?" Piper ventured curiously, fully expecting him to deny her an answer even as she asked it.

Surprisingly, he responded in truth. "Well, first I had to meet with the rest of the Council and give them a full report on everything that's happened and the progress of my mission, then while everyone was working on getting the Safehouse 9 refugees relocated I was trying to figure out how we can adjust all of the safehouse wards to keep everyone hidden."

"Why you?" Leo blurted in surprise.

Chris' eyes narrowed, bristling at the implied insult. "Because I'm the one Council member that understands wards and magical theory the best. Who do you think put the wards up in the first place?"

Leo raised his hands placatingly, trying to keep his tone measured and unoffensive. "I didn't mean anything by it, I just assumed that...well, that the founder would be the one to work on the wards."

"There was more than one founder, you know," the witchlighter sneered.

"H-here you go! Five meals!"

The building tension between the two men abruptly snapped as the young woman from before interrupted them in a high-pitched squeak. Spread out along the counter were five trays, upon each was a glass of real, fresh orange juice and an odd assortment of food.

"Thanks," Chris replied shortly. He snatched the tray nearest to him and abruptly stalked away. Piper hurriedly grabbed a tray as well before following after him, and her sisters and ex-husband hastened to do the same.

"I didn't mean to upset him...I was just asking," Leo grumbled to himself as they all trailed after the witchlighter. Phoebe sent him an empathic smile.

"Leo, I don't think it's what you said exactly. He seems pretty wound up with everything going on, and he hasn't slept at all," she surmised understandingly. "You probably just struck a nerve somehow."

The Elder eyed her dubiously, but remained silent. They followed the whitelighter to a nearby table that was mostly vacant, and each took a seat on the benches. Piper sat next to Chris purposefully, returning her sisters' questioning glances with a challenging look. He shifted slightly as she made herself comfortable on the bench beside him, seemingly unnerved by her continued, and admittedly unusual, support.

"So..." Phoebe murmured across the table from them, staring down at their trays with furrowed brows. "What exactly are these...things?"

Chris chuckled involuntarily, jolted from the uneasy tension between the five of them with her whiny tone. "The largest bowl has quinoa, mixed with berries and almond-milk. Like I said, we don't really have access to animals with everything that's happened to the outside world, so we make do with what can be grown from the earth. That means we have to take special care to get everyone the protein and other nutrients they need. Quinoa and rice are good sources of lots of nutrients, so you'll see it a lot at meals. Thankfully we have some pretty awesome volunteers who make a variety of different dishes using what we have, so it never gets boring or repetitive."

"Keen...wah?" Paige sounded out the foreign word with obvious distaste. "It sounds like some kind of nasty toothpaste."

Chris threw his head back and laughed outright, startling them. Neither of the four individuals from the past had ever seen him laugh so freely, and it suddenly occurred to each of them that he'd always been tense and wary in their presence before - they'd just never taken the time to notice.

He quieted and directed a small grin towards the redhead. "It does, doesn't it? Don't worry, it tastes better than it looks. Well, when it's made right, that is. It's kind of like a cereal or oatmeal - a grain, similar to wheat. They mixed it with...I think that's blackberries, and also almond-milk to give it a sweeter flavor. The small plate next to it has boiled bamboo shoots. Bamboo grows fast, so it's useful for feeding thousands of people at each safehouse."

Piper glanced at her sisters, who were both grimacing down at their food in a very comical way, and then her gaze shifted to Leo, who was contemplating a bamboo shoot on the end of his fork. As she watched, he shrugged slightly and popped it into his mouth to chew for a moment, and then he blinked in surprise.

"It's sweet!"

Chris' lips twitched in obvious merriment, looking as though he were highly entertained by their actions but trying his best not to laugh at them again. Piper glanced back down at her tray and spooned a small mouthful of the foreign grain, nabbing a whole blackberry in the process. She was surprised to experience a pleasant combination of tastes that acted together in tandem to produce an enjoyable and fruity result, balanced by the textured grain.

"That's pretty good," she commented out loud, raising her eyebrows at Chris. He smirked at her in return and then turned to eat his own meal.

Having no other excuses to resist or put off their turn, her sisters finally tried the food on their trays and echoed their own pleased surprise. They ate in silence for a few minutes, letting the background noise of multiple conversations wash over them, but then a young man with wild hair and mischievous amber eyes stepped up to the side of the bench where Piper and Chris sat, grinning at them all.

"This seat taken?"

He plopped down on the bench without waiting for an answer, surveying them with an unrepentant smirk.

"Morning, Aidan," Chris greeted the newcomer casually. "Looking to put your foot in your mouth again?"

The four from the past shared a look of confusion before they caught sight of the man's sheepish smile and hunched shoulders, recalling someone with a similar stance from the night before.

"Oh!" Paige exclaimed. "You're the one from yesterday who...erm..."

"Blurted out secrets he shouldn't be telling?" Aidan finished with another roguish grin. "Guilty."

"And you're over here because...?" Chris questioned, trailing off with a challenging note to his voice.

"To meet the Charmed Ones, _obviously_!" he replied with relish, shrugging off the witchlighter's borderline hostile reaction. "Everyone else in the raw wants to, I'm just the only one brave enough to actually come over here."

"Or stupid enough," muttered Chris in an undertone.

"In the raw?" Leo repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

The young man waved a hand dismissively. "Resistance slang. You'll get used to it."

At this vague answer, the sisters turned and eyed Chris hopefully for a more thorough explanation. He caught sight of their expressions and made a soft disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. "RAW stands for 'Resistance Against Wyatt.' It's part of the code phrase I used to key us into the wards yesterday."

Piper remembered the odd phrase Chris had spouted at the end of their flight through the city, the words measured and rhythmic like a spell._ 'We are raw. The flame inside us will never die.' _It made more sense now, in hindsight - a statement of who they were and their resolve to fight, no matter the cost.

"So how are you liking the raw?" Aidan chattered excitedly. "It's probably nothing in comparison to the cars and shopping malls and iPhones you guys have back home though, right?"

"Eye phones?" Phoebe repeated. "What is that?"

"Something that doesn't exist until 2007," Chris growled through gritted teeth. "Shut _up_, Aidan."

His impish face grinned bashfully. "Whoops. Sorry man, you know I'm real bad with mortal history. It was my worst subject."

"You went to Magic School?" Paige questioned with interest, her eyes lighting up at the mention of the place.

"Of course! Lots of people here did, Mrs. Mitch-"

"Aidan!" Chris snarled.

"Whaaat?" he whined plaintively. "What did I say this time?"

"Missus?" Paige repeated faintly. "Wow...um, guess I get married after all."

Phoebe commented brightly, "Well, at least now we know what his last name starts with."

Chris scowled over at the young man. "What part of 'don't tell them anything' did you not understand?"

"How was I supposed to know they hadn't met yet?!" he exclaimed indignantly.

Chris sagged with visible exhaustion. "Aidan, can you just..."

But whatever he was about to ask was cut off abruptly as his eyes took on a faraway glaze, as if he were looking into the distance at something only he could see. Used to this occurrence from whitelighters, the group waited patiently until his eyes blinked back into focus.

"I have to go, the Council needs me," he announced unceremoniously. "Aidan, stay with them and make sure they don't get into any trouble."

"Hey!" Paige and Phoebe protested simultaneously, scowling.

Aidan's eyes widened in alarm. "Uh- I dunno if-"

"And _don't_ tell them anything. Understood?"

"But-"

"_Understood?_"

"Okay," Aidan relented weakly, looking as though he thoroughly regretted sitting down in the first place. The witchlighter orbed away without further comment, disappearing with the familiar jingling sound they'd all become so used to.

In the sudden absence of a buffer for his comments, Aidan eyed the four time-travelers the way a cornered mouse might look at a giant eagle. Paige and Leo were too busy scowling at the place where Chris had disappeared from to notice his trepidation, however.

"What is his deal?" Paige demanded, then rounded on their new escort. "And why does everyone just do what he says anyway? I thought you people had a council of leaders, not an emperor."

Aidan's cheerful disposition faded abruptly. "He's not an emperor. He's a good man and a great leader. Everyone respects him; we'd trust him with our lives."

Leo grimaced at this description of the one person who annoyed him most. "But _why_?"

The man's molten orange gaze fastened upon Leo in amazement. "You don't know?"

"There's a lot of things we don't know," Paige admitted slowly, frowning. "Chris being one of them. All he's ever revealed about himself is that his family was killed and he's doing all he can to save them, along with everyone else."

Aidan's eyes widened even further, his mouth parting in shock. Phoebe leaned forward eagerly, sensing the chance to seize a few more answers.

"Tell us about him," she requested gently. "Please?"

Aidan shook his head nervously. "Nooo, no way. He would totally kill me if I tell you anything else."

"He wouldn't have to know," Paige persuaded with a sweet smile and wink.

Piper frowned over at her sisters, recalling the rage the witchlighter had displayed the day before when they'd learned more than they should have. "I don't know, guys..."

"It's hard to trust someone you don't know," Leo interjected sagely, peering around at the sisters as if he weren't intending the words to be aimed at their escort. "Especially after all the lies and manipulation."

"But he was just protect-" Piper began to protest, but Aidan interrupted her words in outrage.

"Chris has always done the right thing!" the young man protested. "Even if it looks bad, he never does anything unless it's for the right reasons!"

"Wrong things done for the right reasons don't make those actions correct," Leo responded calmly.

Aidan's face darkened like a summer storm, clouding over with an indignant anger. "How can you say that when he's sacrificing everything for you?"

They had begun to attract the attention of nearby residents, but the young man didn't seem to care as the people at neighboring tables leaned forward to eavesdrop.

"Everything?" Leo repeated dubiously.

"Don't you know the rules of time-travel?" Aidan demanded incredulously, then rounded on the sisters. "Haven't you ever wondered why more people don't attempt to change things?"

The three women glanced at each other with bewildered expressions. Paige chewed on her bottom lip as she contemplated her own foray through time. "Well...when Grams' boots sent me back in time, I tried to change Allen's death and...I mean, I _did_, but then he died anyway in a different way."

Aidan nodded at her. "Exactly. Time is very resistant to change; it's a sentient magical force that _really_ doesn't like to be messed with. The Council researched it heavily once Chris and Bianca suggested their plan, and they found out that there is only one way to change a massive event, especially one that involves death. If it's something that is absolutely destined to happen for whatever reason, then it's literally impossible to change."

"So there's no hope?" Piper asked in despair, thinking of her tiny son and the dark road laid before his feet.

Aidan shook his head impatiently. "That's not what I meant. Great change - like changing the morality of such a powerful being - can only come with great cost. Time demands an exchange for something like that. Think of it as an angry kid who doesn't want to part with a toy...you have to give it a different toy, so it won't get mad and want the other one back."

Leo frowned in confusion. This theory was vastly different than anything the Elders had ever taught him, but it made a strange kind of sense. Trying to change an event without giving up anything in exchange would result in the same thing happening even more forcefully than the first time - as Paige had discovered when attempting to change the fate of Penny's late husband. But in order to change something as massive as the morality of the Twice Blessed...

The Elder swallowed and closed his eyes as he realized his own foolishness.

"But what could Chris possibly give in exchange?" Phoebe inquired, scrunching her face in confusion.

Aidan regarded her solemnly. "The highest price anyone can pay."

The sisters exchanged puzzled glances. He opened his mouth to continue, but it was Leo's voice that broke the silence instead.

"His life."


	6. Come Halliwell or High Water

**Author's Notes:** I am so, so, so sorry for not updating sooner. Just had so much going on! And then when I finally bunkered down to get some serious writing done, I accidentally swallowed plastic (bad restaurant smoothie) and had a couple hospital visits and 2 surgical procedures to make sure everything was okay internally. _Ugh._ BUT- I am absolutely committed to finishing this story and writing a long, elaborate tale. Thank you all for being so patient and sending so much encouragement, right when I need it most! You are all wonderful! I sincerely hope this chapter is worth the wait...it's definitely the longest one yet, clocking in at over 11,000 words. Whew!

For those who were wondering at Chris' sudden change towards his family last chapter, you'll get some insight into that with this one.

Once again, I do not intend to overpopulate this story with OCs. This is primarily a Halliwell-centric fic. With that said, a few OCs are unavoidable, especially since they're going to be in a giant underground resistance full of strangers for a while. But, that doesn't mean that every named OC is necessarily going to be important. Sometimes they are there simply for world-building. So, basically...don't try to remember every OC you see. They may or may not be important. (wink)

Chapter title is a play on the idiom: "come hell or high water."

Also, there are quotes from episodes 6x02, "Valhalley of the Dolls, Pt 2" and 6x06, "My Three Witches" used in this chapter. They are not mine, they belong to the talented authors who wrote them.

To my guest reviewers: Please leave an email address so I can respond to your reviews, especially if you have questions!

To everyone else: I welcome all questions. Please, if you are confused by anything, feel free to PM or email me.

* * *

**Chapter Six:**

**Come Halliwell or High Water**

xXxXx

"_The time is out of joint:_

_O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!"_

_- Hamlet, Act I: Scene V_

xXxXx

* * *

When Chris had first arrived in the past, he spent several weeks spying on his own family: stalking them, studying their habits and schedules, trying to orient himself in the timeline, making sure he had the timing correct for the Titans' attack. Preparing himself mentally for the wrenching pain that punched through his gut every time he saw Piper; beautiful, happy, lively, _whole._ Conquering his desperate desire to orb into the manor and just fall into her arms, weeping; to feel her unmarred skin and run his fingers through her brown hair, not yet stained by blood or his own tears. Throwing up mental and emotional barriers to ensure his own stability, pushing away the haunting memories, burying the overwhelming hatred for Leo that burned in his chest every time he sensed that infuriating presence. Keeping up a running mantra in his head: _Phoebe, Paige, Piper. Phoebe, Paige, Piper. That's not the aunts. That's not Mom._

In those first tense weeks after he orbed into the attic like a windswept hero from one of Phoebe's silly romance novels, it occurred to him how utterly _young_ they were. Barely older than himself, but unspoiled; not yet tainted by bitterness and death and encroaching evil. It was somewhat startling to realize how little they knew about magic and the world around them, how so very little they paid attention to demons and vanquishing and their own inherited responsibilities. And it was thoroughly daunting to see how careless they were with their safety, how thoughtlessly they lived their lives, paying little heed to possible danger. After living in a constant state of alertness for so long, it was absolutely maddening; he wanted to shout at them in pure outrage every time they left Wyatt unprotected in another room, every time they left the manor without throwing up wards, every time they opened the front door without checking first to see what was on the other side. It was like a slap in the face, knowing that he'd finally found his answer.

This was how Wyatt had fallen.

Not because evil had victoriously managed to get their hands on him, but because his family had just _let_ it happen; too concerned with pretending to be normal and their own love lives to even consider protecting their smallest and most vulnerable member.

Despite all the immense love he held for his mother and two caring aunts, their thoughtless disregard infuriated him. He wanted to throw things at them every time a situation revealed their careless naïveté. He wanted to push them, to shake the foundation they'd deluded themselves on, force past the walls they'd thrown up around his presence and make them _see_, for just one moment, what it would do to the world. Only the knowledge that his presence should influence the timeline as minimally as possible held him back, but he couldn't help but let his fury slip a few times - like when Leo didn't even bother fighting for the right to stay with his family and just _left_ them in the care of a complete stranger, or when Piper was more concerned about being model mom than to consider his warnings of the future, or when the sisters paid more heed to their transient boyfriends than to the vanquishes they could have been accomplishing.

Though he had never intended to show them his future, to reveal the entirety of its desecration...when they were forcibly deposited back in his home time he was disgusted to realize that he was _glad_. He _wanted_ them to see what their ridiculous idiocy would create, _yearned_ for them to finally understand why saving Wyatt was so utterly crucial. It was so wonderfully and horribly gratifying when their confidence faltered in the face of his burning skyline, presented with a ruined husk of their bustling city. When they'd finally seemed to understand, to quietly let him take the lead and show them where to go, accepting his words as truth the way he'd wanted them to from the very beginning, it was like a balm to his angry soul.

And then it had all fallen apart.

Standing there, watching his family groan and sob on the floor like broken children, witnessing their confidence shatter in the wake of his reckless decision spurred by fury, did not gratify the simmering anger that had raged beneath his ribcage for so much of his life. It did not fill him with satisfaction or a sense of superiority. Instead, that burning rage turned inward, redirecting bitterness and transforming it into a curdling sense of shame and disgust like nothing he'd ever before experienced. He wanted to punch something. Someone. Maybe himself.

What good could possibly come from satisfying his own childish need for vengeance? How could any of his selfish actions even marginally contribute to saving Wyatt, to erasing this broken future, fulfilling the mission he himself chose?

After the doors to his family's new rooms closed, a barrier between him and the shattered expressions of his family, he sagged against the stone wall between the wooden doors. He stared unblinkingly at the torch directly across from him for several moments, watching the blue orb casting its warm, steady glow on the smooth stones.

"What am I doing?" he whispered to himself.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you the same thing," Erica commented dryly from behind him.

Chris released a soft sigh and then turned to face his old friend. She stood a few feet away, one hand resting lightly on a leather-clad hip. "I tried to stop them, you know. I _knew_ that spell was a bad idea, but...they're just so stubborn."

The Valkyrie raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, almost as stubborn as you. Chris..._why_ haven't you told them who you are?"

He scowled fiercely in response. "You know I can't reveal too much of the future without the risk of changing everything for the worst."

"Really? Or is that just what you tell yourself so you can keep running away?"

The witchlighter crossed his arms defensively and silently glared at her, green eyes smoldering.

"Face it, Halliwell," she began, scoffing when the whitelighter hissed and glanced fearfully at the closed doors beside them at the sound of his true name. "They're here now - there isn't much you're going to be able to keep hidden for very long."

A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw. "I can try."

"Keep telling yourself that."

The young man scowled darkly, glowering at her high boots rather than challenging her gaze. Erica shook her head ruefully. "Stubborn. Look, just think about it, alright?"

She waited for the slightest hint of a nod from her comrade, before clapping a hand on his shoulder like a fond sibling.

"Now come on. The Council is waiting for us."

With a weary sigh, the witchlighter dissolved them into orbs and floated away.

xXxXx

"Well, Chris...from what you've told us, it doesn't seem like you've made much progress."

Chris frowned at the middle-aged witch dressed in modest blue robes, seated across the expansive oval table used for all council meetings. "That's not true. I'm _so_ close to pinpointing who caused the change, and I've already stopped several attempts to kidnap him and change his morality."

"You can gloss over the facts all you want," a haughty centaur chimed in, tossing his braided hair and stamping a cloven foot like an offended horse. He stood a few spots to the right of the original speaker, towering above the table since there was no seat to hold his long equine body. "But the truth is that you are no closer to stopping his fate than we are to winning this war."

Cries of outrage spread throughout the twenty individuals gathered, the sounds echoing off the cavern walls in a magnified ripple effect.

"Maybe you're right," Chris declared, raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony. "We all knew it was a desperate idea from the moment I suggested it. It's dangerous, has only a small chance of succeeding, and even if it does, it will probably come at a hefty price."

The witchlighter's countenance tightened, his gaze burning across the room with a controlled, steadfast fire. "But I'm willing to pay that price, and I won't give up hope. If you want to stop fighting, Gorian, then you're welcome to leave at any time. No one is forcing you to stay."

Gorian's features hardened, an angry flush rising within his high, elongated cheekbones. "That is not what I meant."

"Well that's what it sounded like," Chris retorted, crossing his arms and shifting back to lean against the hard wooden seat. "It's true, I haven't figured out the real cause of Wyatt's turning. But I _am_ close, and I refuse to back down now - no matter what you or anyone else thinks about it. I won't give up on the chance to stop all of this from happening in the first place."

"And if yer wrong?" a grizzled old man chimed in gruffly, leaning forward to rest his scarred forearms on the great oaken table. "If there be no true cause for his...'turning'? If ye can't prevent the path of history, can ye kill him?"

After a brief moment of tense silence, Chris replied calmly: "As I said last year...I would rather die than see all of this happen again. If I can't save him, I _will _stop him."

The brunette ignored Erica's searching gaze in his peripheral vision, instead focusing on the old man's eyes until he backed down and gave a sharp nod of acceptance.

"Tha's good enough fer me."

The rest of the Council seemed to take the man's nod as a signal for the rest of them to accept the situation as well, and despite a few hushed grumblings still flitting about the room, the original woman who'd spoken beforehand stood up to continue the meeting.

"Now that's settled, in regards to Safehouse 9: we were able to rescue a fourth of the residents, all from the lower floors furthest from the Regime's break-in point. Thankfully, many of them were unharmed; those that were not will more than likely survive their wounds. The portal has been closed and blocked so the Regime cannot follow, and our geokinetics and dryads are currently working on extending the housing capabilities of Safehouses 2, 5, and 6 in case of another emergency scenario like this - thank you, Melorna, for your suggestion."

A wispy dryad several seats to Chris' right looked up from the armrest of her chair - which, to his stifled amusement, seemed to be changing shape and arching up into the dryad's gently caressing fingers like a contented cat - and gave a dreamy smile to the woman addressing her.

The witch continued: "As you're all aware, the whereabouts of Safehouse 9 was somehow communicated to the Regime. When that information was released, to whom, and by whom, are still a mystery. It is our duty as members of this Council to find how this information is being leaked, and get rid of the traitor as soon as possible. Keep your eyes and ears open. Report everything you find."

She waited for everyone's assenting nods or spoken agreement, and then asked: "Are there any questions, suggestions, or issues that anyone would like to bring to the floor before we close?"

"Is it true the Charmed Ones are here?"

Chris couldn't tell who'd spoken, but it didn't matter - all eyes in the room swiveled toward him for the answer, mingled hope and disbelief on their faces. He frowned irritably, wondering if he should lie - but he'd always been honest with the Council before. They were all good people, for the most part, and had been chosen as representatives of the many thousands of refugees from each safehouse for that very reason. With reluctance, he finally answered: "Yes. The Charmed Ones and Leo came here with me."

Instantly the hall was flooded with mutters and whispers, everyone's faces reflecting their excitement.

"Did they bring th' boy with 'em?" the gruff old man from before demanded loudly.

"No," Chris immediately replied, and was fiercely glad it was the truth. No matter how much sway he held due to his status as the main founder of the Resistance, nothing he could have said or done would have prevented a large mob of magical beings from slaughtering his baby brother if they'd had the chance. Even though Wyatt was now vulnerable, stuck in the past with only Grandpa as his guard, his chances of survival were infinitely higher there.

Though, a part of him wondered if maybe this situation is what gave evil the chance to turn his brother in the first place.

The hushed conversations continued, filling the room with a humming sound similar to a nest of bees. He waited tensely, eyes darting around the room as his ears strained to hear any possible threats to his family's safety.

"They could help us-"

"-powers are a great asset to-"

"-think of the damage they could cause in-"

"This gives us the chance to-"

"-option of whitelighter healing again!"

"-turn the tide of the war-"

Only three people besides Chris remained silent. He nodded in gratitude to each of them, and doubly reinforced his mental estimation of their loyalty. Erica nodded back at him, whilst the other two simply returned his gaze for a brief moment. Eventually, when the excited debates finally ebbed in volume and several members seemed to be settling down, Chris stood to draw attention to himself.

"They will not be fighting," he declared firmly, his voice carrying easily through the sudden silence. "My first priority is getting them back to 2004 safely. Or did you think you could just keep them here and ignore what it would do to the timeline?"

Several pairs of eyes glanced away from him guiltily. He surveyed the rest with a hard stare.

"I will not let my family be used as war toys," he spat, anger roiling within his gut like a living thing. "I'm sticking around to change the wards so we can avoid anymore tragedies, like what happened tonight. But then I'm taking them home."

He sat back down amidst complete, dead silence. Several seats to his left, one of the people who'd remained silent during the babble ducked their head to hide a pleased smirk. Despite the outrage burning in his chest, Chris made a mental note to let his family meet their loyal old friend when they awoke in the morning.

After a few further beats of silence, the man stood. "Well, if there's nothing else, I'd say this meeting's closed. Angie?"

The witch who'd been the general spokesman for the proceedings, the third person who'd refused to get involved in the debate to use his family, stood and nodded sharply. "Dismissed. Everyone who does not have pressing duties, your assistance is needed for the relocation of 9's refugees."

Chris stood and stretched wearily, then turned to Erica as most of the Council members filtered out of the room to assist the relocation, with a few individuals remaining behind to converse in soft undertones. "Guess it's time to go brainstorm."

The Valkyrie fixed him with a stern glare, furrowing her eyebrows into a firm scowl. "Yeah? And when was the last time you slept?"

He rolled his eyes. "This morning."

"How long?"

"Well, _Mom_, if you really have to know, I got a full f-"

"Chris."

He broke off and turned towards the one who'd spoken, surprised to see the witch standing before him. Angela was a kind, but stern woman, with limited telepathy as her only active power; fit more for running a household or business than fighting a war. When Chris had met her for the first time, it was on one of the Resistance's first reconnaissance missions, when they were still scrambling to save anyone they could in the beginning years of the war. She'd been ankle-deep in the blood of her husband's fallen body nearby, struggling to survive the demon hoard raiding their hideout and protect the magical children they'd housed there, when he and two others had orbed into the mayhem. Though grieving, she'd been a loyal supporter of the Resistance from that day onward.

She stared him in the eyes for a few moments of silence to convey the importance of her question, then inclined her head politely. "May I speak with you privately?"

He'd always appreciated her sense of propriety when it came to reading others' thoughts, so he gave her a warm smile and replied: "Of course."

Since she required eye contact to carry on a telepathic conversation, he focused his gaze directly on her eyes. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Erica slip away towards the main hall.

_I lied in the meeting, Chris._

Chris blinked in surprise, but steeled the rest of his features so that no one would be able to ascertain the general meaning of their conversation. _You know who the traitor is._

_No. But we do know that it was one of the Council._

A grieved sigh slipped out of his mouth. Everyone in the Council had been trustworthy members of the Resistance for many years. To have one turn on them, after so many years of loyalty, was nothing short of devastating. _Who all have you told?_

_Just you, for now. The only other person who knows is the clairvoyant who discovered the treachery in the first place. She could see no more than the knowledge that they were part of the council, and that they'd met with one of the Regime four nights ago. Of course, she has been sworn to secrecy and sealed that promise with a blood oath._

He unfocused his gaze and stared unseeingly at the far wall over Angela's shoulder, turning the information over in his head for a moment. Finally he looked back at her. _Why are you telling me?_

She gave him a hard stare. _Because your family is not safe here. If the Regime can get to your mother, they will be able to erase you from existence._

He had considered this from the moment he recognized the furniture in the attic, of course, but the reminder still hit him like a slap. _I won't let that happen._

_You can't protect everyone, Chris. You need to send them back as soon as possible. If the Regime can kill you before you are born, it will erase the Resistance too._

As much as he wished he could deny that, she was right. It had been his grandfather who came up with the idea - where and how they could conceal a resistance within ground zero - but it had been Chris who used magic to achieve it, who gathered followers and formed a council to govern them, who lead an army against his brother's demonic legion. There was a chance that someone else might take a stand in his place if the timeline was tampered with to such a large degree, but the chance was slim. More than likely, it would create a paradox.

He sighed heavily. _I have to tell them. They won't be careful otherwise, they're still too young and foolish._

_You cannot speak of this out loud to anyone. I will summon them to the Council in the morning._

_Bring him too, _Chris replied, nodding at the man from before. He waited for her to follow his gaze to the man. She nodded thoughtfully, and returned her focus to his eyes. _They'll be asleep for at least 8 hours, if not longer. I plan on figuring out the new wards in that time while everyone else is working on the relocation._

_Thank you. I know this must be hard on you._

He aimed a sardonic smirk at her. _When is it ever not?_

Angela chuckled softly and inclined her head in agreement, breaking their eye contact. "You have a good point."

Taking her spoken response as an indication that their conversation was finished, he nodded politely and turned to head towards the room's main exit. The large meeting room for the Council, which was sarcastically renamed "the war room" by several resistance members, had been warded against magic coming into or out of the cavernous walls. In order to orb back to the residential hall where his and his family's rooms were located, he would have to be several feet clear of the door.

"Oh, and Chris-?"

He turned and met Angela's troubled gaze, raising his eyebrows as her mouth drew downward into a displeased frown.

_Once you change the wards...take care whom you give the access codes to._

xXxXx

"What?" Piper demanded in outrage, glaring at her ex. "Whattaya mean, 'his life'?"

Phoebe scrunched up her face in obvious confusion. "But I thought he was going to go back to the future once he saved Wyatt?"

"Yeah, I mean..." Paige frowned. "Isn't that kinda the point? Fix things and then go back to enjoy what you fixed?"

"Not necessarily," Leo responded, gesturing with his hands as he explained. "Aidan is right, time itself is an immense magical force. Sending someone forward and backward through time is actually somewhat easy - it's the details that are hard. It takes several Elders focusing their power together in order to successfully send more than one person to an exact place and time. Chris had to know that there was no guarantee he'd ever make it back, especially if he succeeded. But..."

"In order to change Wyatt's future, he has to change everyone's future," Aidan continued, his expression still lined in anger from the Elder's previous statements. "Wyatt owns everything. Not just Earth, but all the other realms too. If Chris changes his b- er, Wyatt's fate, he changes everything else; all the people that died, all the governments and cities that were destroyed or taken over... He would literally be rewriting decades of history with one action."

"Wow..." Paige commented, her eyes wide with awe. "That's pretty heavy."

"But that's crazy!" Phoebe protested vehemently. "Why would he sacrifice himself for something that might not even be possible?"

"Because it's worth it," the redhead stated with a simple shrug, his tone suggesting that this should have been obvious.

The four time-travelers sat in stunned silence for several moments, reflecting on the information they'd gathered. All around them, several hundreds of people and magical creatures continued to eat their morning meal and converse amiably - all of them, victims of an evil age brought about by their youngest family member, hoping and praying desperately for Chris' success and consequential sacrifice.

The sheer thought was daunting.

Piper scrunched her eyebrows together, puzzling over the thoughts that had occurred to her in their minutes of silent reflection. "There's something I don't understand..."

She trailed off, glancing at Aidan for permission to continue. He looked back at her warily, but raised one eyebrow in curiosity nonetheless.

"Last night, in the- the broadcast..." She grimaced in remembrance. "Right before Chris turned it off...Wyatt said something that was specifically to him."

Aidan blinked in surprise. "I wasn't watching, thankfully. What'd he say?"

She hesitated, trying to think back to the previous night. Her emotions had been so overwhelming at the time, her heart so horrified by what she'd seen and heard, the memory was already becoming vague and muddled by her unconscious desire to push away the shocking reality. "He said...something about knowing he was here, that he'll find him. And that Chris had betrayed him."

"I think the exact wording was: 'I'll make you wish you had never betrayed me, Christopher,'" Leo supplied. Piper darted a quick smile of gratitude in his direction, then focused her attention back on their appointed babysitter.

"Ouch." Aidan winced. "I dunno if I should be the one to explain that."

"Please?" Phoebe pleaded gently. "We just want to understand all this mess."

He inhaled slowly, then heaved a deep and long-suffering sigh. "He's so gonna kill me for this."

The young man leaned forward and braced his arms against the table. "Okay, it's like this... when the raw first started, we didn't have a lot of resources. We were scrambling to pick up the pieces around the world and rescue everyone we could -well, actually I was 11 at the time, so I wasn't really involved, but- basically, Wyatt and his demon thugs were constantly one step ahead. They had a big army, lots o' power, and they'd killed off most of the whitelighters. Witches were unprotected and the magical community was in chaos. Even though the Resistance was able to hide everyone that was rescued thanks to Chris' wards, we were still blind. We had no way of knowing when or where the Regime would strike. Sooo..."

"You needed a spy," surmised Leo, his brows pinched in thought. "Chris."

"And when Chris came to the past to stop all of this, it revealed what side he was really on," Phoebe finished.

Aidan nodded. "Exactly. Wyatt trusted Chris. When he went back to the past, it showed Wyatt that he was wrong, that Chris wasn't on his side or telling him everything. And then there was that whole mess with Bianca and, well...I'm not sure what all happened, but Wyatt's fury raged for months after that. He blew up a ton of- well...basically he was just really pissed."

"Wait, so you sent your _only_ spy back in time?" Paige declared incredulously.

"Of course not! Obviously we have more now. I don't know who they are of course, that's Council info only; but Chris was the one who went back to your time because...well, I mean, he was the one who came up with the idea."

_"-__I was the only one that didn't want to see Wyatt murdered for what he's done!__"_

"Yesterday, he said it was because he was the only one who didn't want to...kill Wyatt," Piper said softly. The words left her mouth with a rancid, nauseating taste; just the thought of anyone killing her sweet, innocent, blue eyed-

_...except he isn't innocent, is he? _she thought, her heart aching and heavy within her chest. She swallowed and pushed it away from her mind, focusing instead on Aidan's wary expression. Carefully, she finished her question. "What did he mean? Why is he the only one that doesn't want to kill my son?"

"Uhhh..." Aidan responded, his amber eyes widening in alarm. "I think you should ask him that."

Paige huffed in frustration. "Oh, come on. What's the big deal?"

Piper aimed a frosty glare in her sister's direction. "I know he doesn't want you to tell us anything, Aidan. And _we_ will understand if you don't answer."

Her two younger sisters made faces at her emphasis but remained silent, letting Piper take the lead in the conversation. She gazed at the teen beseechingly.

"I just...I need to understand," she implored, desperate to know the source of their whitelighter's selfless, fierce determination. "He could kill my baby. Anyone else would've. But...he won't. With every ounce of strength that he has, he has fought to save Wyatt every step of the way - no matter how vicious we were, no matter how much we resisted, he still stuck to his mission. Never resting, never taking a break, not even for a moment. And I just...I _need_ to understand that. Why would he do that for Wyatt? For us? Why go so far when he could just take the easy way out? Why try so hard to save someone who's already lost?"

She clamped her lips together, trying to forcibly stem the flood of questions that had poured out of her in sheer desperation. Blinking away the tears that had inadvertently formed during her speech, her vision cleared to reveal Aidan's helplessly forlorn expression.

"Because..." He hesitated, his voice wavering tremulously in the face of her emotion. He ran a hand through his hair roughly, making a soft noise of frustration in his throat. "Because you're his hero."

Taken aback, she veered backward slightly in her seat. "I... what?"

Aidan sighed helplessly, looking as though he didn't want to answer them, but just couldn't restrain himself. "You're his hero, you always have been. All three of you, actually. He always talked about you, before he left. Used to go on and on about your strength, your commitment to saving innocents and fighting evil, never giving up, never leaving anyone behind - especially family. When the raw was created, he made sure that those mottos became an integral part of what we are: Never abandon anyone, never back down in the face of evil, no matter how hard it gets. I mean, he even named things after you; the room we're in right now is called 'Piper's Kitchen.' PK for short, of course."

This time, she didn't bother blinking the tears out of her vision. She heard Phoebe sniffle softly across the table, but didn't bother to look. All she could see was the devastated look on Chris' face when she'd told him she never wanted to see him again.

"But..." Paige protested, her voice trembling. "He always seemed so angry with us."

The teen shrugged, his expression bewildered. "I dunno. Maybe you weren't quite what he expected you to be."

_"-you three need to get serious, because if you keep putting your personal lives before your Wiccan duties, you're gonna pay for it."_

Piper closed her eyes in defeat, wishing she could blot out the memories.

_"Well then, pay attention! Because the world I grew up in, families hardly existed! I never got a chance to know mine."_

_"Not my fault."_

_"Not yet."_

_We didn't take him seriously_, she realized, shame curdling in her chest and sitting heavy on her heart. _We didn't care about his mission or the lives he came to save. We didn't care that he came to save our family._

_No wonder he always seemed so fed up with us._

"What..." Leo cleared his throat nervously. "What about me?"

The redhead eyed him with clear suspicion. "What about you?"

"Well...why does he hate me so much?"

Aidan laughed nervously. "Ha! That, uh- that's because, ummm-"

"Maybe it's because you don't know when to keep out of other people's business."

The five of them each jumped in surprise at the hostile voice emanating from above them and whirled their heads around to stare up at Chris, who'd apparently returned from the Council while they were distracted in conversation. He scowled down at them all fiercely, his eyes burning with anger.

"Were you planning on sharing my entire life story, or just the past few years?" he inquired snidely, aiming a sneer at the teen sitting furthest from his position.

Aidan glared up at him defensively, rather than backing down as he had when he'd first joined their group. "I just told 'em what they needed in order to understand that you're on their side."

Chris opened his mouth to retort, but then flinched in surprise at an unexpected touch. He uncrossed his arms and inclined his head to look down at Piper's hand clutching the frayed hem of his ebony shirt. She stared up at him earnestly, her brown eyes desperately trying to communicate her sincerity.

"I'm so sorry, Chris."

The anger drained from his expression, swiftly replaced by bewilderment. "For what?"

"For the way we've treated you. The way _I've_ treated you."

He blinked in surprise, then shrugged off-handedly. "No worries. It's cool."

_No, no it's not,_ thought Piper, but he had already continued speaking. She remained silent, resolving instead to talk to him in a more private setting. He would never be honest with her while surrounded by hundreds of people who could (and most likely would) eavesdrop. She understood that much about his personality, at least.

"The Council wants to talk to all of you. Are you finished eating?"

They all grudgingly nodded in silence. Chris pointedly ignored their sudden awkwardness in his presence and motioned for them to stand. As they moved to comply, he waved an arm carelessly and orbed their trays away, presumably to wherever the kitchen staff housed their cleaning facilities. The brunette waited for them to gather together at the end of the table and then gestured again, forcibly sending them to the entrance of the Council's main meeting room.

As the last of the glowing orbs dissolved, he tilted his gaze back to the redhead still seated at the table. The teen eyed him warily, as if he were a bomb that could explode at any second. He sighed wearily. "...thank you. I appreciate you standing up for me."

"...uh, yeah. It was nothin'. Hey, um- sorry for telling them stuff. I just...they're just so irritating and-!" Aidan exclaimed, then abruptly closed his mouth and flushed in embarrassment. "Look, man, I'm sorry. I shouldn't-"

"Oh, trust me," the brunette drawled sarcastically, his lips canting into a grimace. "I'm well aware how frustrating they can be."

The teen laughed, and then shrugged and shook his head ruefully. "Good luck, Chris."

"I'll need it."

With a wry grin, the witchlighter waved casually and then dissolved into orbs once more. When his vision cleared and reformed into the main hallway outside the war room, he was met with an amusing view of his aunt scowling irritably, hands planted firmly on her hips.

"You could'a warned us, y'know," Paige pointedly stated.

"I could've," he replied brightly, taking great care to maintain a straight face. Paige had always been his favorite to verbally spar with.

Her mouth dropped slightly in comical outrage, and he hastily turned around to face the war room's entrance so she wouldn't see his lips twitch. "This is the main meeting room for the Council. It's where we hold all major discussions and plans. Think of it as the Parliament of the Resistance, if you want."

Chris pushed open the heavy stone door before they could respond, and nodded to the two people he saw through the opening before stepping inside. His family slowly followed him into the room, glancing around with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. At the far end of the expansive table set in the center of the cavern, Angela stood to welcome the newcomers.

"Greetings, Charmed Ones," she nodded to the sisters, and then to Leo. "Greetings also to you, honored Elder."

"Uhhh...hi," Piper replied warily, her eyebrows raising in surprise. At her elbows, both of her sisters repeated the greeting with varying degrees of cheerfulness.

Angela gestured leisurely with one arm to encompass the table. "Please, be seated."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Leo responded politely, looking around the expansive room in curiosity.

"Yeah, we really appreciate your help," Phoebe added emphatically, as the four of them moved towards the nearest chairs.

"Especially considering..." Paige trailed off, and shrugged with an awkward smile. "Well, y'know- Wyatt."

"Well, he was the only Halliwell kid to turn out like that, so I suppose we can let it slide."

The time-travelers immediately whirled their heads around to stare at the man seated to the left of the witch, who stood slowly once he'd gained their attention. Chris ducked his head to hide a wide grin.

"Darryl?!" Phoebe and Paige gasped in tandem, their mouths falling open in complete surprise.

The grey-haired man returned Chris' unsuccessfully hidden smile, then winked at the sisters. "In the flesh."

They squealed in delight and sprinted across the room, enveloping him in a giant four-armed hug. Piper and Leo followed at a more sedate pace, with Chris trailing behind after telekinetically closing the doors with a lazy hand movement.

"Wow, you're looking...grey," Piper commented with wry humor, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

Darryl snorted in amusement, untangling himself from the younger sisters' arms. "And you're looking way too young. It's good to see you, Piper."

She smiled delightedly and gave him a tight hug, then moved aside to give Leo the chance to greet their old friend with an extended hand.

Darryl eyed the Elder grimly, and nodded instead of returning the offered handshake. "Leo."

The Elder blinked in confusion at the unfriendly response, slowly lowering his hand. Awkwardly, he replied: "Uh...hey, Darryl."

After a few beats of uncomfortable silence, Darryl noticed Chris standing off to the side, his gaze locked with Angela's. The cop moved forward to grab the young man's attention, and waited until the emerald eyes focused on him before clapping a hand firmly on his shoulder.

"Didn't get a chance to say hi in last night's meeting. Welcome back, Chris."

They exchanged a brief hug, with Chris smiling warmly in return. "Hey, man. I'd say it's good to be back, but it was a hell of a trip to get here."

The former cop guffawed in good humor. "I'll bet. Come on, let's sit down. We've kept Angie waiting long enough."

Each of them moved to a chair nearby, with Chris seated between Darryl and Angela. The sisters glanced at each other as they sat in the high-backed wooden chairs, then surveyed the rest of the giant table.

"I don't get it," Paige commented. "Why such a big table if it's just you three?"

Angela turned her head and focused on the redhead. "If you're referring to the rest of the Council, they are all sleeping. We worked long into the night to transport and settle the refugees from Safehouse 9."

Abruptly reminded of the tragedy they'd witnessed, the time-travelers' expressions sobered.

"We're so sorry for your loss," Phoebe offered in sympathy, her expression clouded with sorrow.

"Thank you," Angela replied with a firm nod. "But you must understand, this is a war. We expect casualties. Every member of the Resistance knows that they could lose their life at any time without warning, regardless of whether they have magical powers or not."

"That's terrible," Paige declared, horrified.

"That is our world," countered the blonde witch calmly. "But we did not call you here to discuss death. You were called because there is some information you must be made aware of, that is not safe to speak of out loud."

The sisters exchanged bewildered looks, tinged with alarm. Piper warily replied, "If you can't talk about it, then-"

"Angela has limited telepathy," interjected Chris. "She can exchange thoughts with you, but only through eye contact."

The woman waited for expressions of understanding to cross the sisters' faces before continuing her explanation. "I will speak with each of you individually. Please be forewarned that you must not speak of this out loud with anyone, unless in the utmost dire circumstance."

Smirking at his family's raised eyebrows and alarmed expressions, Chris commented cheerfully: "So who wants to go first?"

Darryl chortled softly. "Stop teasing them, kid."

"What?" he replied, affecting an expression of pure innocence. The former cop snorted and reached over to ruffle the brunette's hair affectionately, before Chris ducked away.

"You two seem close," Leo commented, genuine surprise coloring his voice.

Their amused expressions fell instantly. Chris' face filled with wariness, whilst Darryl's expression morphed into one of intense dislike. He opened his mouth to respond, but Chris quickly blurted: "Well, since my father wasn't around much, Darryl was kind of like a second dad."

Darryl's gaze swiveled to Chris' face immediately, his eyes widening in disbelief. The witchlighter gave a minute shake of his head, staring meaningfully at the councilman, before directing his gaze back to Leo.

"Yeah, well..." Darryl added gruffly, quickly hiding his surprise. "Seeing as how his _father_ pretty much abandoned him, I spent a lot of time with Chris while he was growing up. He came over to play with my boys often."

"How are the kids?" Piper asked quickly, attempting to soothe the sudden thick tension. "Is Sheila doing well?"

If anything, her attempt at easing the awkwardness in the room only magnified it. Darryl's expression clouded with pain, and Phoebe winced in response, raising up a hand to massage the skin over her heart.

"Sheila's dead," Chris informed them shortly, his words clipped and devoid of emotion. "So is Mikey. Darryl Jr is at Safehouse 2."

Piper swallowed and closed her eyes in grief. "Oh. Darryl, I'm...I'm so sorry."

"It was years ago, Piper. That's not important right now."

"What _is_ important..." continued Chris impatiently. "Is the threat we're facing now. So, seriously - who wants to go first?"

Angela surveyed the time-travelers calmly, her expression revealing none of her thoughts or any possible impatience with their delay.

"...I will," Leo volunteered softly, his voice subdued in light of everything they'd learned over the past few days. He locked eyes with Angela, silently staring at her as she conveyed the necessary information.

While the Elder was successfully distracted, Darryl leaned towards Chris and spoke in a whispered undertone. "He doesn't know?"

Chris glanced at him warningly as his aunts leaned forward, straining to hear the conversation. He thought for several moments, and then answered Darryl's question indirectly.

"Piper." He waited until her warm brown eyes met his gaze, and then continued - ignoring the strangled noise of surprise from the man to his right. "What all did Aidan tell you while I was gone?"

Piper raised her eyebrows and gave him a pointed smile. "What, you want me to be honest with you, when you won't be honest with us?"

He paused, then couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "Okay, I walked right into that one. Touché."

Darryl chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "Yeah, she's got ya there, kid."

She smirked and nodded, accepting the mild praise. A few seats downward, Leo sighed grimly and sat back in his chair, then nodded to Phoebe beside him. "You next."

Phoebe cautiously met Angela's eyes, blinking in surprise when the woman's voice filled her mind and dulled the sounds filtering through her ears. The sensation was oddly disconcerting.

Chris leaned forward and braced his forearms against the table, thoughtfully studying Piper as he considered his options. She returned his intent gaze with a small mocking smile that tilted the corners of her lips, an expression that was all at once both familiar and unfamiliar; a pale shade of the expression she would one day wear in response to her boys' often dishonest tales.

They stared at each other in a silent battle of wills as Chris contemplated the best possible course of action. Piper seemed to trust him now, having seen visible proof of everything he'd ever told her; and he _had_ promised the night before that they could all talk about Wyatt's descent into darkness. He couldn't risk them knowing future information, yet at the same time could not possibly hope to deflect everything that would undoubtedly reach their ears now that they were here in his time. Meanwhile, the other two sisters wavered on a cliff's edge - wanting to trust him based on their sister's example, but hesitating in consideration of his past actions and Leo's wavering opinion of him. And Erica hadn't been entirely wrong earlier this morning; the idea of completely hiding the entirety of the future timeline was a ludicrous concept now. He could continue to resist their attempts to glean information from him, further bludgeoning the wavering thread of trust between them; or, he could take his friend's advice, and yield slightly - controlling what they learned, manipulating the flow of information, and compromising it into an option that would both satisfy their curiosity whilst fulfilling his own need for secrecy.

He nodded abruptly, decision made. "How 'bout this? You ask me something you want to know - that's _not_ crucial future information," he clarified at the sudden gleam in her eyes. "I'll answer you fully and truthfully, without leaving anything out. Then you tell me what Aidan told you. Deal?"

Piper pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Anything I want?"

"As long as it can't impact the timeline in a major way. Anything about your second son or what happens to any of you is off limits, obviously."

Leo and Paige leaned forward in great interest, their eyes darting back and forth between the two witches as if their conversation were a tennis match.

Piper chewed her bottom lip as she considered the deal, though she'd already planned on agreeing. "And how will I know that you aren't leaving anything out of your answer?"

Chris huffed a soft laugh. "Well, you trust Darryl, right? He's known me all my life. He can tell you whether I'm telling you the truth or not."

Piper eyed the two of them for a brief moment, and then nodded. "Deal. But I get one question for everything Aidan told us."

"Fair enough." He grimaced. After a short pause, the witchlighter smirked ruefully and spread his hands wide, palms turned toward the ceiling. "Ask away."

Phoebe abruptly nudged Paige, nodding her head toward Angela. "Your turn."

"Awww, man!" whined the redhead in a soft undertone. "Fill me in later, okay?"

Phoebe agreed in slight bewilderment, focusing on the conversation happening a few seats to her left while Paige locked eyes with the middle-aged witch.

Piper's humorous expression gently morphed into a calm, serious gaze. "Alright. First question...last night, you told me that evil was within Wyatt's heart most of his life, poisoning his mind, and that it didn't show up until it was too late."

The witchlighter furrowed his eyebrows, his expression tense and wary. "Yeah..."

"What did you mean?" she continued. "How do you know that it was something that happened in his early life, and not later on?"

Silence reigned over the room after her question for several moments, and then Chris blew out a breath that ended in a breathy chuckle. "That's one hell of a loaded question."

"Can you tell me?" she inquired, frowning. "Or do I need to pick something else?"

"Piper!" Leo protested in a quiet hiss, greatly interested in the answer.

Chris slowly inhaled and then exhaled, his eyes unfocusing as he considered her question. After a few minutes of reflection, he said: "No, I can tell you this. After all...if and when we succeed, none of it will matter."

_The whole point of my mission is to change Wyatt, after all_, he thought grimly.

Delighted with his response, Piper aimed a beautiful smile at the whitelighter, filled with more cheer than he'd seen on her face in months. The sight stabbed him right through the heart, reminding him of lazy Sundays spent in the kitchen - just the two of them, mother and son, baking cookies for the rest of the family. Whenever they took the batches out of the oven, they would carefully grab one each; eating the melting dough before it had a chance to cool and harden, chocolate and peanut butter dripping down their hands; and then he would look up at her and grin, and she'd smile impishly back at him, as if it were a secret that no one else could share - that very same smile now right in front of his eyes.

He stared at her, at a complete loss for words; drinking in the sight of her happiness as though a drowning man that would never see the sun again.

The smile on her face twitched and faltered, slowly fading away in confusion. Puzzlement, and the slightest hint of suspicion, began to fill her brown eyes as she focused on his strangely broken, yearning expression. Under the table, Darryl quietly knocked his foot against the whitelighter's leg.

Chris inhaled sharply, looking away from her face and focusing instead on the cavern wall far behind her, blinking away the telltale moisture burning the corners of his eyes. Taking an unsteady breath that shuddered on its way into his lungs, he swiftly replayed their conversation over in his head and recalled his mantra from a year prior.

_Phoebe, Paige, Piper. Not the aunts._

_Not my Mom._

"Wyatt was always different from other kids his age, growing up," he began, forcing his heartbeat to slow and his voice to remain steady. "It wasn't just that he had so much power or came from a famous family of witches, but rather in the way he reacted to certain situations. He wouldn't throw tantrums over things that upset him - he would enact retribution. If another child stole his toy or pushed him, he wouldn't cry and stamp his foot like a normal kid; instead, he used his powers on them as punishment. He was ruthless; unstable. He craved power of any kind, was totally obsessed with it."

Feeling more in control of his emotions, Chris straightened and looked back at his family, dividing his attention between each of them rather than simply focusing on Piper. "He was incredibly controlling and possessive. As he got older, his amount of friends grew smaller. Anyone that he cared for, he essentially considered as 'his'. If anyone hurt that person in any way, Wyatt would unleash his fury on them. A bully once pushed someone he considered 'his' down a flight of steps, breaking one of their legs and fracturing an arm."

Chris frowned, recalling the memory. "Wyatt was upset, but he didn't react in an over-the-top way...just healed the one who'd fallen down the stairs. By then he'd learned what was considered a normal reaction and what wasn't, so he waited. And when no one else was nearby, he orbed that bully to where no one could hear them screaming, and tortured them within an inch of their life. The only reason he didn't kill them was because he was discovered before he could finish them off. He was 15 at the time."

His family stared at him in abject horror, their eyes wide and mouths hanging slack. Surprised to see Paige paying attention to the conversation, he glanced over to the blonde witch sitting on his left side.

Angela gazed calmly back at him. _I didn't wish to interrupt you._

"Oh, sorry," he replied out loud. "Go ahead. Piper, I'll continue explaining after you two are done speaking."

Piper swallowed and attempted to compose herself, taking a deep breath before focusing her attention on Angela's face. Chris leaned back in his chair with crossed arms, content to wait silently until the mental conversation was over; but Leo bludgeoned his plans, as usual.

"Is he telling the truth?" the Elder asked Darryl, his expression haunted. Despite the question that he'd asked, Chris was gratified to notice that there was no true suspicion in his father's voice or eyes; the man was simply overwhelmed.

Darryl frowned and grudgingly answered: "Every word."

The Elder's expression twisted, and he raised up a hand to cover his mouth for a few moments until he'd composed himself. "I don't understand. Why didn't we _do_ something?"

"You really think Wyatt would leave evidence that could be used against him?" Chris questioned, a cynical smirk tugging one end of his lips. "He healed the bully himself, and threatened him 'til the guy promised never to tell. And who would have believed him, anyway? Wyatt was supposed to be King Arthur reborn, the Twice Blessed, the paragon of good. No one would've believed he could do that sort of thing."

"But what about the one who saw what Wyatt did?" Paige demanded, her eyes still wide in shock. "Didn't they tell someone?"

"Of course they did." After a moment of silence, Chris continued darkly: "No one believed him."

"But- but that's-" Phoebe stuttered, shaking her head in disbelief.

"_You_ didn't believe me when I told you that Wyatt was the evil in my future," the witchlighter pointed out with savage delight. "What makes you think it was any different then? Especially when the bully was completely unharmed. Sure, the guy was terrified of Wyatt from then on, but there was no real proof."

_"Why won't you believe me?!"_

_"Because that's ridiculous, Chris! Wyatt would never do something like that."_

_"But it's the truth!"_

_"No, I don't want to hear it. Stop trying to get your brother in trouble for something he didn't do."_

_"But, Dad-"_

_"Chris, if you don't stop this right now, I'm telling your mother. Do you really want to disappoint her like this?"_

"I just..." Leo floundered for words, staring at the table without really seeing it. "I can't believe he could-"

"Believe it," snarled Chris, resentment burning within his gut as memories bubbled to the surface. "He's done thousands of worse things. Or have you forgotten what he did to all those people last night?!"

"Chris," Darryl intoned lowly, warning him not to lose control of his emotions once again. The witchlighter glanced at his old friend and huffed slightly, turning his head to glare murderously at the empty curve of the table.

"You're right, Chris," Phoebe ventured gently. "We didn't believe you...and we should have. We're so sorry."

Chris jerked a hand roughly through the air. "It doesn't matter."

Darryl slanted a dubious gaze in the witchlighter's direction, but remained silent.

The group waited uncomfortably in the quiet room until Piper looked away from Angela and focused back on their surrogate whitelighter. She studied his thunderous expression for a few heartbeats, and then ventured a quiet response. "Thank you for telling us, but...why did you want us to know?"

"Because you're not safe here. You need to be on guard; don't trust anyone outside this room, no matter how kind or truthful they seem. At least until we find and get rid of the traitor," Chris answered with a blank expression, then paused. "Except Erica; you can trust her. Despite her personality, she's fiercely loyal."

The time-travelers exchanged worried glances, then unconsciously shifted a little closer to each other, banding together as a family unit without conscious decision. Chris narrowed his eyes at the sight, remembering a time when that gesture included him, but returned his attention to the witch beside him. "Thank you, Angela. We'll probably be a while longer; you don't have to stick around."

She nodded and lifted herself out of the high-backed chair, silently moving around the table and exiting the room, leaving only quiet tension behind. As the doors shut behind the woman, Chris let out a heavy sigh.

"I didn't give you the whole truth, though," he announced suddenly. "It wasn't just about Wyatt's personality. There were other things, little events throughout his life, and once his twistedness was out in the open...all those small things suddenly made sense. I do know that, whatever happens to him, happens before or around the time when you give birth to your second son, Piper."

The color drained out of her stricken face. "So soon? But...but how do you know?"

"Because Wyatt told me," he replied simply, shrugging.

Everyone in the room goggled at him, even Darryl. If the situation and their conversation weren't so grim, he would've dissolved into laughter at the comical sight. As it was, he merely hid a small huff of amusement before returning his focus to their expressions.

"Well he didn't just come out and say it, obviously. There were just certain things about him, things that didn't make any sense...strange things he'd say. And then I learned that he went missing shortly before-" he hesitated for a split second, quickly changing what he'd been about to say. "Before you gave birth. That's when I knew something happened to him, something that turned him into the monster he is today."

Such prolonged exposure to his family was starting to mess with his emotional barriers, affecting his perception of what could be said and what shouldn't. He sighed quietly, mentally willing the conversation to end before he had the chance to blurt out something he shouldn't say.

Piper eyed him for a few moments, gauging his reaction and waiting to see if he would say anything further, then nodded slowly when he remained silent. She glanced at Darryl, who returned a slight nod of consent, confirming the validity of what they'd heard. "I see...thank you for telling us, Chris."

He smirked at her, raising an eyebrow. "It wasn't for free, remember?"

She chuckled softly in return, making him hide a smile as the forlorn expression on her face cleared a little. "That's true. Alright. Well, the first thing Aidan told us is...that your mission is basically a suicidal one."

Chris froze, carefully keeping his expression blank. His mother eyed him carefully, then slowly continued. "He said that, in order to change something that would affect the rest of the world, you would have to sacrifice yourself in return. And that you knew that, before coming to the past."

Every pair of eyes in the room focused on his face, anxiously waiting to see his reaction. He gazed back at them calmly, only the rigid posture of his shoulders betraying any tension.

"He's not wrong," the whitelighter slowly replied. "But that's also not entirely true."

Phoebe leaned forward, her expression pinched in concern. "What do you mean?"

"Well...Wyatt was supposed to be good, right? According to the prophecy, he could be an incredible force for good or evil, depending on how he was raised. So my theory is that he's not destined to be one or the other. If I can change what happens to him...even though it will change the course of history, it shouldn't require anything in return, because it wasn't a destined event in the first place."

He paused, hesitating. "But if it does, then I will gladly pay that price; whether by my life or my entire existence."

"But why?!" Paige blurted, thoroughly baffled at his dedication.

"My reasons are my own," replied Chris, his eyes narrowing with irritation. Out of the corner of his eyes, the witchlighter spied Leo staring speculatively at him; gauging his resolve, assessing his motives. It unnerved him to see such interest from the man instead of blatant dislike; he was much more comfortable with the idea of mutual hatred. Quickly, he turned back to the eldest sister. "Next question."

His mother frowned as she thought, her eyes roaming over the grain lines etched in the table's surface without really seeing them. The group waited in silence for several moments, and then Leo cleared his throat, attracting the eyes of each person in the room.

"I have a question," he stated, glancing at Piper for permission. Chris briefly considered denying the man out of sheer dislike, but squashed the thought when his mother nodded at her ex-husband.

Leo focused his gaze on the young witchlighter, familiar green eyes clearly displaying his puzzled thoughts. "Why did you try to erase our second son's existence?"

Despite the amusing sight of Darryl nearly giving himself whiplash to stare at him in sheer horror, Chris scowled at the Elder in righteous indignation. "_Excuse me_, but that's not what happened. _You're_ the one who decided to leave your wife after becoming an Elder; I had no part in that. There was nothing stopping you from choosing your family over remaining with the Elders. Don't blame me when _you're_ the one who gave up on your marriage."

"How dare you!" Leo seethed, his face reddening in outrage.

"Look, I don't know what's going on," interrupted Darryl, raising a hand as if to ward off the rising tension. "But you two need to cool it. Whatever you might think, Chris would never purposefully erase someone's existence. Trust me when I say he has more of an interest in your child's life than most."

Forcibly calming himself down, Chris added: "Exactl_y. _Thank you. After all, he was one of the main founders of the Resistance; without him, all of this probably wouldn't exist."

Leo frowned, still brimming with anger and guilt over the witchlighter's statements. "I see."

Chris shifted his eyes over towards the sisters, expectantly raising his eyebrows.

The brunette hesitated, glancing at her husband's unhappy countenance. "Uh, well, he told us that you were the first spy in the Resistance. And...that Wyatt trusted you, and he was furious over you going to the past to try and stop all of this."

"What!? Unbelievable! He should've never-" Chris began with a scowl, then reined in his reaction. With a stern frown, he demanded: "What else did he tell you?"

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. "Not so fast, buster. I get another question."

Letting out an explosive breath of frustration, Chris leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms irritably. "Fine."

Instead of speaking immediately, Piper looked over at her two younger sisters. They met her gaze evenly, each of them communicating various emotions in silence, as only close family can. After a few moments of this, they turned as one to face the two councilmen.

"Last question..." Piper began slowly, her voice firm with resolve. "How do you know us?"

Chris blinked in surprise, and then gave a soft chuckle of amusement. "Piper, didn't I already answer this, like...the first week I came to the past?"

"No, you didn't," his mother replied evenly. "You brushed us off with a half-truth that never actually answered the question. So I'm asking you now: how do you know us, and _why_ do you know so much about our family? Why do you know about Wyatt's life growing up, and about a hundred other things that don't make any sense unless you knew us personally?"

Alarm creeped its way up from Chris' stomach all the way up into his heart, clouding his lungs and sticking in his throat like a live creature. It was too soon- they _couldn't_ know, not yet; they weren't ready for this yet. _He _wasn't ready for this yet.

"I can't tell you that," he replied smoothly, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

But his mother wasn't done.

"You said Darryl knew you, your whole life. And before, when those three witches stole our identities, you knew instantly that something wasn't right - even when no one else noticed. You said, in all your life, you'd never seen me take the bait like that other witch did. Aidan said Wyatt trusted you, and you know things about his childhood no stranger should know. You knew your way around the manor, from the moment you set foot in it."

He was frozen. Watching, staring, unable to look away as his doom approached, like a speeding train you can see coming towards you but unable to move or look away from; his doom spelled out upon her lips, written in the determined slant of her eyes, heralded by the insightful words of his own mother.

_No_, he thought, desperate. _No._ _Not yet._

"So, what I guess I'm really asking is, were you...Wyatt's friend, growing up? Is that why he trusted you, why you know so much?"

Relief, hot and palpable, scorching through his veins; exhaled abruptly on a heaving sigh that exploded out of him. He almost laughed for the sheer joy of his escape, provided neatly and swiftly without any action on his part. Despite the intensity of the close call and the tense, wary expressions of his expectant family, he couldn't help but huff softly with amusement, looking down at the table so his long hair could hide the crooked grin on his face.

She'd provided the perfect out for him. An escape, both true and not true, that would throw them off his trail, encourage trust between them, and subsequently keep them from ever guessing the real truth of his identity. No matter what future knowledge was slipped to them now, it wouldn't matter; so long as no one said outright that he and Wyatt were brothers, they would never guess the truth. He wanted suddenly to hug her out of sheer gratitude.

"You got me," he drawled with an intended air of reluctance, comfortable and reassured in his own ability to keep his one last secret. He tilted his head back up to face them, careful to appear contrite and uncomfortable. "Yeah, I was Wyatt's friend. Best friend, actually. We were extremely close."

Emboldened by the surety of his own family's complete obliviousness and total inability to guess the true nature of their connection, he dared to say: "Closer than brothers."

Darryl eyed him in complete disbelief, his mouth hanging slack. Chris fiercely reined in his urge to laugh, instead focusing on the overwhelmed expressions of his time-traveling family. The sisters exchanged bewildered looks tinged with guilt; half-smiling, half-grimacing at the new knowledge.

"Gosh, Chris!" Phoebe exclaimed, her eyes wide and heavy with guilt. "Why didn't you _say_ something?"

"Yeah, I mean..." Paige added uncomfortably. "We would've, y'know...been a little nicer."

Chris smirked mockingly. "What, you mean like, 'Hi, I'm Wyatt's childhood friend from the future. Oh, by the way, he's evil now, wanna help me stop him?' I'm sure that would've gone over _really _well."

The sisters grimaced in unison.

"He's got a point," Piper commented wryly, then eyed him with faint suspicion. "But why tell us now, Chris?"

Carefully, he gave an irritable frown, calculating his expression and response. "Well, you'd already guessed. There wasn't much point in pretending." He breathed a soft sigh, purposefully rolling his shoulders in a careless shrug. "Like Erica said last night...you're here now. It's not like I could keep everything from you forever. I'm just...hoping it won't change the timeline too much."

There. Multiple statements, each true in their own right, weaved together to form an impression that would steer them in the entirely wrong direction. _Or, the right direction...depending on your viewpoint,_ he mused smugly.

The sisters nodded understandingly. Chancing a glance at Leo, the witchlighter was uncomfortably surprised to see the man staring intently at him, carefully watching his movements and actions, suspicion warring with doubt in his green eyes. Chris quickly directed his gaze back to the sisters, careful to appear nonchalant and relaxed now that his "secret" was revealed.

"I see." Piper smiled at him, warmth filling her gaze in ways he hadn't quite prepared for. "So, when exactly do we get to meet Wyatt's new playmate?"

He forced a wry chuckle, shifting to a more comfortable position in the hard wooden chair. "You know I can't tell you that, Piper."

"Can't blame a girl for trying!" Paige quipped, delivering her usual saucy smirk. He made a face at her, playing up the banter between them to encourage the new, wavering trust beginning to grow within their hearts. Not for the first time, he felt dirty from his own actions; hating himself for manipulating them with such frequent ease.

To his right, Darryl leaned forward close enough to softly whisper: "You are the luckiest son of a witch I have ever known."

"It's a gift," he murmured back, smug amusement clearly apparent in his voice.

Suddenly remembering their arrangement as Darryl leaned back in his seat, Chris nodded at Piper. "So? What was the next thing Aidan told you?"

Despite the friendliness that had suddenly sparked within their interactions, the eldest sister's expression clouded with reluctance. She returned his gaze uneasily, then slowly replied. "He told us...well, the way he put it was, that you care about us a lot. That we were your heroes."

Chris' mouth fell open in pure shock. "He _what?!"_

The sisters each winced a little at his tone, exchanging an apprehensive glance. Phoebe added softly, "He said you always talked about us, and looked up to us...as role models."

Chiming in, Paige murmured: "Said you named the dining hall after Piper."

"I can't believe him!" he cried in disbelief, outrage pouring out of him in a cracked shadow of his usual voice. "He had no right to tell you that!"

Piper gave him a crooked smile, watching his expression hesitantly. "Well, if it helps...we really appreciate it, Chris. It made me..."

She glanced at her sisters, confirming their expressions. They both quickly nodded. "It made _us_ happy. And, I want you to know that...things will be different, now and when we get back. We can work together to save Wyatt."

Carefully folding away his irritation, Chris slowly nodded. "That's all I ever wanted."

* * *

**Ending Notes:** What, you thought the revelation would happen that easily? Ha!


	7. We All Have Scars

**Author's Notes:** So, I realized that I forgot to include the logic and reasoning behind Chris' motivation/decision in the last chapter. Whoops. That's fixed now!

Getting inside Leo's headspace to write his POV is _hard. _Like, woah.

As always, thank you all for the immense support. You're all fabulous and deserve millions of cookies!

**If you're going to leave an anonymous review, please leave an email address for me to respond to you. Especially if you ask questions or point out things that confused you.**

* * *

**Chapter Seven:**

**We All Have Scars**

xXxXx

"_I'm just the boy inside the man_

_Not exactly who you think I am"_

_- TFK, "Be Somebody"_

xXxXx

* * *

Leo Wyatt had been many things in his life and unexpected afterlife; devoted medic, loving husband, adoring father, faithful whitelighter, fierce Valkyrie champion, reluctant Elder. He had lived through the high and low points of several decades, gaining wisdom and insight that many mortals would never possess, developing a deep understanding of people's personalities and fears, learning how to encourage and strengthen with only words as his tool. He'd seen people grow and have children and die, and then he'd seen their children grow and die, too.

In all that time, he had never seen anyone lie with the truth quite as skillfully as Chris Perry.

He was flawless; earnest and open, combining emotional tones and facial expressions together with layered half-truths, weaving together a picture of passionate honesty fueled by just the right amount of hesitation. He could manipulate an appearance of truth, pointing you in the direction of an assumption or decision that fit what he wanted you to believe, all the while convincing you with disturbing ease that it was your idea in the first place. It was extremely unsettling, and moreover, dangerous.

There was just something about the man that unnerved him, setting off alarms in his mind, scratching at his senses, squirming beneath his skin; a crushing sense of familiarity, an itch that just _wouldn't _go away. Ever since he'd first laid eyes on the man, his instincts had screamed at him that there was something _important_ about this time traveler, something obvious and recognizable, something he should _notice_. But no matter how hard he'd tried, he just couldn't quite unravel the mystery that was Chris Perry. Couldn't quite manage to outsmart or outmaneuver the minefield of schemes and manipulations so expertly planted around his many secrets. It irked him to no end, knowing that something strange and undefinable was hovering just beyond his grasp, shouting for him to realize what the secret was, yet being unable to comprehend. It was maddening, and frustrating; coupled with all of the twisted decisions and shifty actions with dubious morals, and Leo just could not quite bring himself to place full trust in the witchlighter.

Oh, he was a good man, certainly. That much was clear in the way that those in the Resistance respected him, smiling with mingled joy and hope in their eyes as he passed them by, obvious in the sheer single-minded dedication with which he pursued Wyatt's salvation, evident in his selfless desire to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

But he _was_ hiding something.

Leo couldn't be certain, of course, but he'd always had an uncanny sense for when he was being lied to. And despite the sisters' warm acceptance of the supposed truth, despite Darryl's wholehearted support of the young witchlighter, he remained unconvinced. There was just something odd about the stark terror filling that narrow face when his wife had begun to corner him with words, secrets buried beneath that overwhelming sigh of contrived reluctance, lurking behind the whispers that followed their group wherever they went. The eerie feeling that he was missing a piece of the puzzle, oblivious to a vital spark of knowledge that hovered vaguely just out of reach, coiled within his heart with every moment spent in this future; drowning him with every unprepared glance he got of the witch.

And Chris Perry was a thorough man. He never went into any situation half-cocked or unprepared, charging in with guns blazing but forgetting to bring the right ammunition (the way the sisters usually operated). He was the kind of person that planned, schemed, strategized, thought, and planned again, until he'd worked out every last detail and readied himself for each eventuality that could be thought of or expected. Leo had experienced this firsthand, when it seemed like outside forces and circumstances were leading them all in a direction that had no other options but the ones presented to them; and then his wife had pointed out that Chris knew what would happen to the Elders when this had all begun and hadn't prevented it - had, in fact, orchestrated its happening in such a way that would allow him undisturbed access to the Charmed Ones' home, to Wyatt. He'd watched Chris lie blatantly to his face, coolly unaffected by the knowledge that he'd been caught at his own game, that someone knew (and had proof) that he'd murdered just to achieve his goals. He'd watched Chris slowly unveil various tiny secrets about the future as time lengthened, cautiously dropping small bombs whenever the sisters started to drift away from the mission he'd shoved into the middle of their lives, igniting their fury against him while also inexplicably stirring their passion to continue fighting.

At first it was saving Paige, and the rest of the world along with her; and they were okay with that. And then it was saving Wyatt, which was still acceptable, but suddenly none of them were quite sure whether his words could be entirely trusted at face value - because if he'd lied about Paige, then who was to say he wasn't lying about this too? And then he wasn't just a simple whitelighter after all, and suddenly there were a lot of things that didn't add up, and somehow saving Wyatt had become saving everyone else _from_ Wyatt, and finally there had been no question whatsoever that this manipulative man ruining their lives could not be trusted.

But now they'd seen firsthand the destruction their little blonde angel would rain down upon this world, and suddenly saving the entire population from Wyatt had become saving him from whatever turned him before the birth of their second little angel.

Leo couldn't help but wonder when the next proverbial shoe would drop, and saving Wyatt would become _stopping_ Wyatt.

Because Chris Perry wasn't the kind of man to graciously answer questions just because you'd asked. Though he'd seemingly, uncharacteristically, allowed Piper to put forth any question she wanted (within limits of course), essentially he hadn't revealed anything major or even truly helpful. Of all the things Chris had ever admitted about the future of his own will, all of them focused around Wyatt. Even his apparent confession of identity had revolved around Wyatt; and Leo hadn't missed that his wife's question had never truly been answered. He'd never given a reason for how he knew so much about them, how well he knew _them_, with all their personalities and full demon-fighting history. He'd given _an_ answer, but it had been a hinted admission; an agreement to Piper's own suggestion, implying answers of their own imagining for the questions she'd put forth. Maybe it was arrogance, or maybe it was pride, but Leo just couldn't imagine himself or the sisters ever revealing to a family friend some of the things the witchlighter had instinctively known without being told. He couldn't imagine any of them ever allowing a child that wasn't their own near the Book of Shadows, nor showing that child where all the potions ingredients were kept, nor revealing the entirety of their demon-hunting history and personal lives.

Because it didn't make sense, not really; despite the sisters' unanimous acceptance. It didn't make sense for him to cling so tightly to a secret identity that would impact their future in such a small way - what did it matter that they knew who Wyatt's future friends were? How could knowing the grown up version of a small child they hadn't met yet possibly tip the scale of the future in such a drastic way, as he'd always implied? Why would a man, who normally clung so tightly to every secret, so easily give up the one thing he'd held onto the most ardently?

So Leo waited. He watched, silently; ever hunting for the moment when the witchlighter's guard was down, searching for any piece of information that could point to a different possibility than the one they'd been supplied.

And if he focused so adamantly on his uneasy suspicions because there was a small part of him that agreed with the witchlighter; if he was desperately trying to block out the voice hissing relentlessly that he'd failed to fight for the right to be with his family, that he could have _stayed_ and been free to love them openly without stolen moments in the dark with his sleeping son, well...no one would ever have to know.

Not even himself.

xXxXx

They remained in the council room until lunch, with the sisters chatting pleasantly with Darryl and Chris while Leo remained uncomfortably silent and somewhat lonely on the fringes of the group, brooding on the nature of time travel and lies. After a short break for lunch, Darryl departed for his home at Safehouse 2 and Chris introduced them to the Resistance's main library.

The sisters had cooed and gasped in awe as they entered the large cavern, which was easily twice the size of the library housed at Magic School, if not more. Books spanned the entirety of the cavern, neatly arranged on stone shelves grown right out of the rock they stood upon and extending far above their heads. The sheer vast array of books and scrolls was so overwhelming, even Leo couldn't help but stare in stunned fascination.

"This is incredible!" Phoebe gasped softly, her mouth unashamedly dropping in shock as they all slowly twirled in place, eyes scanning the great cavern.

"But this is-" stuttered Leo, struggling to wrap his head around the immensity of what his eyes were seeing. "This is even more than Magic School and the Elders' library combined. How-?"

Chris smirked as he observed their astounded expressions. "This is a collection of every book we could salvage at the beginning of the war, both magical and mortal. Along with whatever else we stumbled across after that. If there's a way to get all of us back to the past without being in the manor, it should be in here."

"If?" Paige scrutinized him curiously. "Wait, so you haven't gone through these before? But then, how did you-"

"I used the Book of Shadows to come back the first time," Chris interrupted, then paused for a moment thoughtfully. "Well, the second time too. The Nexus fueled most of the power I needed to create such a specific portal, and the spell I needed was already in the Book. But we won't be able to do that this time, not with such a large group. Wyatt's probably already tripled the security at the manor since we came through. Trust me, we won't be getting back that way."

"Well, we could try the Power of Three," Phoebe suggested hopefully.

Her sisters cast doubtful looks in her direction. "No offense there, Pheebs," Piper commented wryly. "But I think we should avoid letting you write spells for now."

Phoebe scowled irritably, looking highly affronted by the slight to her spell-writing skills. Just as she opened her mouth to retort, however, Chris interrupted their sisterly harassment.

"That's not a bad idea, actually. Calling on the Halliwell line would be much safer though."

Paige peered at him, her nose scrunching in confusion. "Wait, if we're just going to write a spell ourselves, why do we need a library?"

"Because," Chris drawled with exaggerated patience. "As Piper so helpfully pointed out, your last attempt didn't turn out so well. There's a huge section in here on the intricacies of time travel and spell-writing. It should help with making sure the wording and intention of the spell is foolproof before we use it."

His lips quirked briefly at a private joke. "We wouldn't want to end up in the Jurassic period, after all."

Leo grimaced at the reminder of the last time portal he'd intentionally jumped through.

"Right..." drawled Piper, arching one eyebrow in puzzled sarcasm. "So what exactly are we supposed to be looking for here?"

"Any spell, potion, or ritual you can find that will successfully send us back to a specific day in time. And we're going to need to find a site of large magical energy, like a spiritual nexus, in order to power and direct the time portal...since we won't have the Manor Nexus making it easy for us." Chris paused in his explanation and pointed towards a corner of the room where two stone shelves met, with multiple faded armchairs in desperate need of restitching clustered nearby. "Time travel books are in that small corner over there. Spell-writing is the large section in the center of the room. And...Phoebe, I've already orbed all of the history books out of here, so you can stop looking now."

He smirked as she flinched in surprise, guilt flooding her expression as she stopped attempting to crane her neck in search of the magical history section.

"...was worth a try," she grumbled. Chris snorted at her, shaking his head in fond exasperation.

"Come on."

He led them toward the alcove he'd pointed to minutes before, pointedly ignoring their attempts to stop and gawk at their surroundings. Leo noticed a few occupants of the room glance at their party over the edge of their books and then perform spectacular double-takes as they recognized their identities. Uncomfortable with such focused attention, he hurried to catch up with the sisters and their surrogate whitelighter. He slowed to a halt just in time to catch the tail end of Chris' next words.

"-few things, then I'll be right back."

The sisters nodded understandingly, and the man swiftly dissolved into shining orbs before floating out of the massive hall. Leo watched him go, frowning silently in discontent.

"Well, I guess we better get started!" Paige declared brightly, clapping her hands together as if calling a class of students to attention. Piper snorted faintly at her ridiculous enthusiasm, then moved over to the nearest shelf with a small shake of her head.

Leo stared at the stone far above their heads with unfocused eyes, thoughtfully replaying their long morning conversation and analyzing it with an uneasy heart. Somehow, the situation just didn't quite fit right within his mind; his instincts quietly protesting as he attempted to inspire belief in the new information. Like his tiny son attempting to force his square toy block into the slot for circles, the supposed truths they'd been fed grated at his consciousness, leaving jagged edges behind.

"Leo?"

He blinked in surprise at the gentle murmur, slanting his distracted gaze away from the ceiling in order to focus on the source of the voice that had penetrated through his musings. Phoebe hovered next to him; not close enough to inspire discomfort at her proximity, but angled toward him in invitation. _I'm here,_ her posture implied, _if you need me._

"Are you okay?"

She was an empath; she knew he was not. But he tilted his lips up in a smile regardless. "Yeah. Just thinking."

Phoebe's eyes softened around the edges, filling with kindness. "I'm sure Darryl will come around, Leo. Just give him time."

He stared at her blankly for a moment, before realizing that the coiling sense of unease she'd sensed from him had been interpreted incorrectly as malcontent over their old friend's strange hostility. "Oh- Uh. Yeah."

Shaking himself out of the dark mood he'd descended into, Leo stepped forward to join the rest of his family at the bookshelves, purposefully ignoring the piercing gaze that followed his movements. He swept his eyes across the titles, searching for anything that might help them make it back to his son.

_Understanding the Butterfly Effect; Theory of the Multiverse; How to Avoid the Grandfather Paradox; Time Travel: Magical vs Mortal; Temporospatial Claudications Simplified; Time Travel for Dummies... _Leo snorted faintly in derision at the title and continued to skim; unsure of what exactly he was searching for, but determined to find it nonetheless. _Ripples and Wormholes; Timeslides, Otherspace, and Pocket Dimensions; Paradoxy vs Parallelism; Interfering with the Grand Design; Potions & Portals: A Guide to the Past; Chronokinesis: Myth or-_

Leo paused, and reached out a hand to tug _Potions & Portals _from its slot between two heavy tomes. The book was slim and light in his hand; flipping it over, he saw that the front cover was decorated with a simple potion bottle interposed over a familiar blue time portal. Giving a mental shrug, he carried the book over to the nearest armchair and sunk down into it. Dust particles scattered into the air as he opened the book and flipped aimlessly through the pages, barely focusing on the words.

_This would be so much easier if Gideon were here_, he thought ruefully. His mentor would surely have known the best books to search for their predicament, kindly directing them on the right path with the calm benevolence that Leo desperately strove for in his own position as an Elder. Sighing despondently, he was surprised by the depth of wistful longing he felt for the beautiful alabaster halls of the heavens, filled with billowing clouds and gentle clicking. Despite his fierce resentment towards the other Elders for even considering erasing his son, they would have been a welcome influence of peace on the scattered emotions warring within his heart.

_"Haven't you realized yet? You are all dead. The Elders are dead. The Cleaners are dead. Good has __**lost.**__"_

Leo still wasn't quite sure how to deal with the knowledge that his beautiful, cherubic son could grow up to be the cause of so much destruction. Where had they gone wrong? Had he abandoned his family, not just in their past, but also in this future? Did his absence cause this crumbling shadow of their bright world? How could their first son turn out so horribly wrong? And why did their second son refuse to see them, even though word of their presence had surely reached him by now?

Leo frowned, staring intently at the pages in his lap without seeing a single word. _Why_ had Chris concealed Wyatt's turning for so long? They had wasted nearly an entire year fighting with the witchlighter and stubbornly resisting any attempts he made to force them into action. If he had just _told_ them from the very beginning, they could have spent these long months searching for the demon that would bring such ruin to the world. Why tell them only after Wyatt had already been kidnapped by the Order, months after he'd first arrived in their time?

So much of what they'd learned just didn't make any sense; it was like staring at a half-finished puzzle and knowing how it's supposed to look when finished, but missing all the key pieces. Pieces that were no doubt hidden within Chris' mind, unattainable and out of their reach.

As if summoned by mere thought, orb lights briefly illuminated the space in their corner of the library before beginning to solidify into the man that had both concealed and revealed all of the terrible facts swirling in his head. Seizing hold of the opportunity unexpectedly presented to him, Leo lifted his eyes to study the witchlighter, keeping his head angled toward the book in his lap to create the illusion of being engrossed in reading. As the blue orbs coalesced into the lanky form of the young man, Chris' green eyes darted around the open space swiftly; briefly touching upon each of them in turn, then quickly raking across the visible parts of the room before finally coming back to their normal, central position in a slow, relaxed blink. In that same instant, a small amount of tension visibly bled out of the man's shoulders and toned frame. All of this took place in the span of mere seconds. If Leo hadn't been closely watching the man, he would have never noticed the strange actions; and, with a slight jolt of surprise, the Elder realized he'd seen this before. Not just with Chris, but also with the Valkyries and their male soldiers - even some of Leo's old comrades from the war in his human lifetime had exhibited this same brief tension when entering a new room or area, scanning for immediate threats and cataloging the position of allies.

_He's a soldier. _The thought came suddenly, an unbidden realization that made him blink. He'd never before considered the witchlighter as a warrior, or even a reliable force in battle; at least, not until yesterday's display of magical and strategical fortitude. Somehow the man had always seemed so young to him...far too young to be involved in a war spanning across multiple worlds and planes.

And it was devastating to realize that _his _son had created this world, where children fight the wars of adults and rely on no one but themselves.

"What's all that for?"

Leo inhaled shakily and cleared his mind, focusing on the sound of Paige's voice to claw his way out of the depressing mire his thoughts had been wallowing in once more. He tilted his head up fully to focus on where she'd gestured, and saw several layers of parchment being spread out over a low table that Chris had apparently materialized while Leo was deep in thought.

The young man glanced up at Paige as she and her sisters crowded closer, leaning over the edge of the table to scrutinize the strange diagrams and symbols covering each page. "This," he replied casually, "is what I will be working on while you guys research."

Piper quirked an eyebrow at him, curiosity filling her expression. "And what exactly is 'this'?"

"Wards," Chris replied simply.

"See, you've mentioned that a couple times now," Paige placed her hands on her hips, giving him a disapproving frown. "But you still haven't exactly explained what they are."

Emerald green eyes blinked slowly in shock. "Oh. Huh...right, I keep forgetting you haven't learned yet..."

He hesitated briefly, seeming to consider what he should say on the subject, then continued after a brief pause. "Well, it's basically a magical barrier that you can put up around a location or object, usually a building. The bigger the area to be warded, the more magical power you'd need. Sort of like a coded spell or ritual that you program to operate at all times, letting only certain things or people inside based on conditions that you set when you create it."

The sisters glanced at each other in surprise and renewed interest, but Leo simply watched the witchlighter as he explained, having already known of the concept of wards.

"So..." Phoebe pursed her lips in concentration. "It's sort of like Wyatt's shield, only invisible?"

He hummed thoughtfully, tapping his fingers against the edge of the wood. "More like the barrier the Elders put around Magic School, but I guess it's similar."

"The Elders, huh?" Piper's eyes narrowed, her gaze focusing on the witchlighter with keen cunning. "Can it keep demons out?"

Leo frowned as Chris smirked approvingly at her, warm affection clearly visible in his expression and voice. "It can keep whatever you want out."

Piper suddenly directed a suspicious gaze towards her ex-husband. "So, how come we've never known about this before?"

Suddenly finding himself the center of attention, Leo stuttered and scrambled to organize a diplomatic response. "Uh- well, it's- I, um..."

"Go ahead, Leo." Chris gazed at him with a blank expression, but a malicious hint of challenge glinted in his eyes. "You might as well tell them."

Leo frowned at the witchlighter, resentment building as he realized the man was purposefully trying to get a rise out of him. Reluctantly, he responded to his wife's insistent stare. "The Elders forbid whitelighters from teaching their charges about wards."

"Why?" Piper inquired with a chilling smile, her tone deceptively calm and cheerful.

"Well...that's..."

Chris chimed in as Leo's voice trailed off uncomfortably. "Isn't it obvious? They didn't want the greatest forces of good in the world to be hidden from their spying eyes."

"You mean it can block the _Elders_, too?!" Paige blurted, utterly delighted with this prospect.

Chris smirked, confidently ignoring Leo's bitter glare. "It can block anything and everything you want it to. Even the Elders."

Piper immediately sat next to him and demanded imperiously, "Teach me."

"Wait."

Four pairs of eyes swung towards Leo, with varying levels of rebellion in their expressions. He frowned, focusing on Chris rather than the girls as he recalled the witch's earlier offhand comment. "When did they learn about wards in your time?"

The witchlighter's expression darkened, clouding over with a mutinous frown set over a clenched jaw. "Shortly after Wyatt went missing. Or so I've been told. I can't really remember a time where the Manor didn't have wards."

Leo swallowed thickly at the implications in the man's statement, unspoken but clearly directed at him with barely restrained hatred. His meaning was clear: if they'd known the first time around, if _Leo_ had broken the rules and just told the sisters how to protect the manor, the chances of Wyatt being kidnapped and turned evil would have been infinitely less. His heart felt heavy in his chest, choked with a billowing cloud of guilt. "...I see."

The young man had apparently expected him to be defensive, possibly even angry, because he blinked several times in shock and then leaned back to study him openly. Whatever he found must have soothed the strange hatred that had risen up so suddenly, because his green eyes softened and darted away from Leo to refocus upon the scattered sheets of parchment.

Chris cleared his throat in the oppressively awkward silence. "Right. So, basically these symbols here are runes of power describing certain aspects or people, adapted from spells in different magical cultures." He pointed to various places on the nearest diagram. "Each one has a specific meaning, and I'm basically designing this so that each rune is called upon at the time the wards are put in place, showing the magic what should be allowed inside and what shouldn't. Or, in this case, _who_."

The sisters nodded in unison, all three of them staring at the diagram with varying levels of comprehension. Phoebe extended a finger and pointed to a square block of strange symbols and squiggly lines cramped into a corner of the parchment. "And what are these?"

"That's just my notes on how the ritual should be done, what sources of power could be used, that sort of thing."

Paige tilted her head sideways and squinted. "What language is that?"

Chris blinked in surprise. "Uh. Mine."

The women all turned as one to stare at him in a mixture of amusement and disbelief. "You _made_ a language?" Paige clarified, her eyebrows raising dubiously.

He shrugged dismissively. "Keeps people from seeing things they shouldn't."

In the quietly awkward moment that followed, the four travelers from the past were abruptly reminded that this man was not just a warrior, but also a spy - wearing subterfuge and secrecy like a second skin.

"So..." Phoebe hesitantly ventured into the silence. "How exactly do you use these drawings to create a barrier? I mean, wouldn't you need a spell?"

"Well, of course. But spell casting is more than just rhyming words and hoping it works the way you want it to," the witchlighter replied, a hint of aggrieved condescension filtering through his voice, as if he'd expected them to already know these things and was disappointed to have been proven wrong. "For intricate spells, you need other items to support the power of what you're casting, and a written guide of sorts for the magic to follow. Think of it as a combination of making potions, casting spells, _and_ using your powers, just put it together instead of doing it all separately. In this case, it's like..._persuading_ the air to do what we want it to, and giving it the power it needs to sustain that indefinitely."

The sisters absorbed this new information for a few moments, and then Piper raised her eyebrows expectantly. "So can we see how it works?"

Chris shook his head immediately. "No way, I'm nowhere near done with this. It'll take at least two more days before I can come up with something good enough to keep Wyatt's demons out, _and_ have it be different enough that he won't immediately recognize the magical pattern. Plus I'll need to search for a way to fuel that much power into multiple wards in different locations all at once."

Their expressions fell in clear disappointment. The witchlighter smirked at the response and suggested, "You could always read a book on it, y'know."

Both Phoebe and Piper grimaced in distaste, being vastly more comfortable with learning by experience and action, whereas Paige seemed to be considering the idea with a thoughtful spark of interest in her eyes. Chris sized her up for a brief moment, gauging her level of interest, and then moved his hand in a sweeping gesture. Moments later, a sizable textbook sailed across the room and neatly flew into his expectant palm. Paige cocked an eyebrow at him with a saucy smirk, one that he returned in full force while depositing the large tome into her waiting arms.

"It's only fitting," the witchlighter commented wryly. "You're the one who put up wards around the manor the first time, after all."

"Really?" The redhead's face brightened considerably, a wide smile spreading across her features. "I'm _awesome_."

Both Piper and Chris snorted at the exact same moment, a long-suffering sound of sarcasm and amusement rolled into one. Leo blinked in surprise, feeling suddenly wrong-footed. He hadn't wanted to believe the ridiculous idea that Chris could somehow be a family friend, but it was seeming more and more likely the longer they spent time with him. How else could the man be so similar to his wife, if he hadn't grown up spending time with all of them, adopting their mannerisms (as children were wont to do)? This wasn't the first time the whitelighter had exhibited similar personality traits to the sisters, or even Leo himself. He could remember more than a few times where they'd actually spoken the same phrase at the exact same time. Actually, now that he thought backwards over the past year, there were so many instances of similarity that he wondered how he'd never connected the dots before.

Yet, somehow, the knowledge still just wouldn't quite fit within his mind. His instincts buzzed insistently, demanding that he try to find the real truth, an explanation that was different to what they'd been told. The distinct feeling that this was wrong, that Chris was _not _who he said he was, rebelled against his doubts and fought desperately to reassert the suspicions that had plagued him for so long.

The two eldest sisters drifted back to the bookshelves, scrutinizing the various titles in search of something useful, while the two resident witchlighters both settled into tattered armchairs, immersing themselves in research. Uneasy and filled with discontent, Leo grudgingly resumed his perusal of the small book lying in his lap.

xXxXx

Chris showed them the location of the bathhouses before dinner, which they were horrified to learn were actually communal (though separated by gender) due to the lack of indoor plumbing that was so prevalent in their time. Their whitelighter visibly struggled to maintain a straight face while the girls moaned and complained about the possibility of someone walking in on them while they were bathing, with Leo standing off to the side and forcing himself not to laugh at their shared horror.

While the girls ranted to each other about their circumstances, Leo turned to face Chris hesitantly. "So...if there's no indoor plumbing, why do the toilets in our rooms work?"

The witchlighter's twitching lips finally succumbed to his amusement and turned up into a full-fledged grin, revealing thin dimples; once again Leo found himself bludgeoned by an overwhelming sense of familiarity, as if he'd seen that smile somewhere, on _someone_, before even knowing this man. Oblivious, the witchlighter responded cheekily. "Magic, of course. The contents simply vanish."

Despite what many believed about the Elder, Leo was a naturally inquisitive person. He liked to learn, and was always open to being taught new concepts; it was the main reason he knew how to fix so many household appliances despite having been born during a time without many of those conveniences. Putting aside the strange déjà vu that had flooded his senses upon seeing that delighted grin (and feeling strangely relieved that, for the moment, the man's volatile hatred for him had apparently disappeared), he curiously questioned: "So if the toilets can be powered by magic, why not showers?"

"Showers are a little more complex. They have to supply water _and_ get rid of it at the same time, rather than just getting rid of something. Since we have so many people at each location, it would be a little too time- and magic-consuming to conjure or build thousands of personal showers, so-" Chris shrugged. "A bathhouse was the better idea. Gives our resident naiads something to do besides just supplying the kitchens and the Garden with water, at least."

"You mentioned that before," Leo commented, furrowing his eyebrows in puzzlement. "What exactly is the Garden?"

"Oh. It's where we grow all the food for everyone. I can show you and the sisters after I'm done with the wards...assuming we haven't figured out a way to get back by then," Chris trailed off darkly.

Catching the comment, Phoebe turned to face them and firmly corrected his negative statement. "We'll find a way, Chris."

The witchlighter simply shrugged, not acknowledging her optimism. "You should go ahead. Most people bathe in the mornings, so you should have a good bit of privacy...for now, at least."

Phoebe gave him a small, sad smile, recognizing his avoidance. Then, as one, the sisters all turned and entered the bathhouse together...looking vaguely as if they were marching to war rather than a simple bath, Leo noted with amusement.

Beside him, Chris made a swift gesture as if orbing something into the women's bathhouse. Leo squinted at him quizzically for a few moments, and then orbs materialized a pile of clothes (which looked suspiciously familiar) directly above the witch. They quickly toppled onto the young man's head and then tumbled down to the floor at his feet.

Chris growled. "Very funny, Paige."

Recognizing the clothes as having been the ones given to the sisters that morning, Leo felt his lips twitching and ruthlessly attempted to suppress the laugh that wanted to bubble out of his throat; he didn't want to give the witch further cause to hate him, if he could help it. Meanwhile, the time traveler was still grumbling to himself as he moved toward the entrance to the men's bath, absently orbing the dirty clothes away.

"Give the girls some new clothes, and what do they do? Drop the old ones on my head. You'd think I could get a thank you or something, but nooo. I can't win."

Leo followed the sounds of the witchlighter's ire through the door and into a short hallway made of smooth stone. As he traveled along the path, the sounds of rushing water quickly grew louder and overcame the man's grumbling ahead of him. The light in the tunnel swiftly became brighter as he rounded a corner, and then he stepped through a large opening...into Valhalla.

Blinking in surprise, he reeled back and cast a wide-eyed stare in every direction, distinctly unsettled. Upon closer inspection, the room -if such a vast, hollowed out cavern could be called that- only vaguely resembled Valhalla after all. Unlike the rest of the Resistance, there were no glowing torches providing light here; momentarily puzzled, he lifted his gaze to the ceiling and discovered that the stone had been enchanted to look like a spring sky, filled with billowing clouds and a brilliant sun. A monumental cliff comprised of ebony stones towered far above their heads, covering the majority of the left side of the cavern, with a wide torrent of water cascading down. The immense waterfall poured into large tiered pools extending across the entire available floor-space, with small and somewhat dry pathways connecting each pool to the others. Wide stalagmites with blunted off tops, looking vaguely like giants' footstools, were scattered about the cavern, with smaller waterfalls pouring down to form individual showers in each pool. There were even a few clusters of trees and floral bushes throughout the bathing pools, which were definitely taken straight from the foliage at Valhalla. If he ignored the stone tunnel behind him, he could actually forget that they were all miles underground.

Thoroughly amazed and feeling distinctly like he'd stepped through another time portal while not looking, Leo slowly closed his open mouth and searched around for the man he'd followed into the bathhouse. Chris stood several feet away in the nearest pool, the water level coming up to cover his bare chest just under crossed arms. Smirking, the witchlighter raised an eyebrow at him, wordlessly mocking his imitation of a fish.

"The naiads might have gone a little overboard," Leo commented casually.

Surprisingly, Chris laughed outright in response. "Yeah," the witch agreed with obvious mirth. "They let Erica have a little too much input on the design."

"Well, the Valkyries have always been friendly with the neighboring water folk, so..." Leo trailed off uncertainly. "Wait, are the mermaids here too?"

Chris was already shaking his head before Leo could finish speaking. "They don't get involved with land wars, you know that. They're not exactly fond of men, anyway."

Chuckling, Leo replied: "That's a bit of an understatement."

The witch shrugged noncommittally, then turned around to slosh through the water over to the nearest stalagmite. Leo started to reach for his clothes to strip them off, then froze; slowly, he raised his eyes again to stare at the witchlighter's retreating back. The deep water, buffeted by the constant deluge pouring down from the cliffs, distorted the majority of his body...but what he could see of the man's back chilled his blood. Raised, angry scars littered the pale skin like a nautical map; furrowed rows in ragged lines depicted deep claw marks that had healed painfully and slowly, several puncture marks like that of vampires or fanged beasts clustered around his shoulders and arms, countless angry red knife lines everywhere he looked, and (the most disturbing of all) a large circle of unnaturally white skin dented a portion of his left side - as if someone, or some_thing_, had taken a huge chunk out of his body.

He felt abruptly sick.

"Chris..." he managed to choke out, forcing the sound past bile that rose up in his throat.

The witchlighter turned expectantly, then straightened and tensed like a coiled snake at the sight of Leo's expression, his posture revealing even more scars on the front of his chest. A dark red scar spread across the man's sternum where Bianca had ripped his powers out months before, but there was also a jagged sun-shaped mark right over his heart - the remnants of a large energy ball, wielded with deadly precision.

"What's wrong?" Chris demanded, eyes already darting over the landscape as if searching for the source of the inexplicable horror undoubtedly displayed on his face.

"What..." Leo tried to swallow, found his mouth too dry, and coughed instead. "W-What _happened_?"

Chris stared at him in complete confusion, his eyebrows scrunching down over puzzled emerald eyes as the alarmed tension visibly drained out of his body. He followed the direction of Leo's appalled stare, and slowly, ever so slowly, understanding dawned. Exasperation warred with embarrassment on the witch's face for several moments; finally, he crossed his arms with a resigned expression. Leo wished he hadn't; now that his eyes knew where to find them, the scars looked so much worse with the skin stretched taut over flexed muscles.

"War." Despite the irritation and defiance apparent in the witch's gaze, Chris' voice was exceedingly gentle as he replied. "There are no more whitelighters, Leo."

_How is he even alive_? The thought rose unbidden within his mind, impossible to ignore. Bites and knife marks were one thing, but the giant fissures traveling the length of his back would have undoubtedly drained the man of an immense amount of blood, especially if he'd continued to fight the creature or demon that caused it. And the dent on his left side- Leo wasn't even sure he wanted to _try_ and think of what could cause such a wound, but surely it had to have nearly killed the witch; and with no whitelighter healing? _How...?_

He struggled to think of something to say, but the horror was overwhelming, chasing everything else out of his head but the terrible sight of those scars. Chris saved him from doing another imitation of a fish, and continued in that same gentle voice.

"It's okay, Leo. It doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't!" Leo snarled, stalking forward before he'd even finished the words. Some of the previous alarm reappeared in the young man's green eyes, and he backed away slightly at the sight of the Elder's rage.

"Uh- Leo, calm dow-"

Leo pointedly ignored him, sloshing through the water fully clothed until he stood directly in front of the witch. A small part of his brain noted with concern the way the man flinched back from his raised hands, as if terrified of touch, but he ignored it in favor of pouring all his concentration into fueling the golden glow blazing forth from his hands. To his credit, Chris simply stood and allowed him to try, calmly watching his face until he slowly realized that the skin was not repairing itself before his eyes.

"You can't heal what's already healed," the witch murmured softly, reverting back to that achingly gentle voice one might use on a terrified, abused animal. He waited a few moments more until Leo finally, reluctantly abandoned the attempts at healing, and then the witch raised his hands and lightly pushed Leo's back down. "It's okay," he repeated softly.

"No. No, it's not." Leo bit out the words angrily, then whirled around to go deposit his sopping clothes on the nearest sidewalk connecting the pools together. "But it _will_ be, because we're going to save Wyatt. We're going to _fix_ this."

As he furiously ripped the donated clothes off of his body and dumped them with savage delight on the floor, Leo decided right then and there that it didn't matter what his instincts told him. It didn't matter that the story they'd been told made little sense when compared with everything else; it didn't matter that he'd never heard of any whitelighters or powerful magical family lines with the last name of Perry; it didn't matter that Chris lied more often than he told the truth. If a man could go through all of the things this one had endured, and still be kind enough to want to rescue and protect the source of all that pain rather than slitting his throat and ending the devastation before it could begin, then that man deserved every ounce of support Leo could give.

Unseen behind the Elder's turned back, a small, genuine smile blossomed on the witchlighter's face.

* * *

**AN:** I know, I know, we're still on day one. But I promise the next chapter will pick up the pace. (Honestly, I was trying to do it with this chapter; but these stubborn guys refused. _Men. _Sheesh!)

The next chapter will be dedicated to anyone who recognized the book series reference halfway through this chapter.

_**Preview of Chapter 8:**_

_The time-travelers get to see more of Chris' firepower and battle prowess, Erica reappears in all of her disgruntled glory, and the Resistance traitor begins to take things up a notch._


End file.
